Knotted
by little red cardigan
Summary: "So you imprinted on me while balls deep inside that other chick?" Having your imprint walk in on you while you were having sex with someone else probably wasn't the most ideal way to meet your soul mate. - ON HIATUS -
1. Prologue

**A/N:** Hello, all! A few months ago, I posted this story under the title "Waiting to Exhale" and only managed to publish the prologue before quickly losing interest and taking it down. So, hardy har har, I thought I'd give it another try. Let's hope I have enough inspiration to finish this through. *fingers crossed* This story is somewhat non-canon and Seth is Beta of the Pack. Why? Because I like him being the Beta - he needs more love. ;) As of today, this fic is named "Knotted" but I may change it later on.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing but my iPod filled with sleep-inducing songs and my crappy laptop. Chapter titles are taken from "Viva La Vida" by Coldplay.

**Rating: **M - for language and for future scenes

**Pairing: **Seth Clearwater / OC

* * *

**Knotted**

**...**

Prologue

[_Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand_]

* * *

So this was what imprinting felt like.

It was as if he had been submerged underwater his whole life and he was finally breaking the surface for air for the very first time, completely oblivious to the world that had passed beyond him. He rocked his hips unsteadily, palm automatically snapping out to grip the edge of the headboard while his inner wolf snarled terribly, grappling for the normalcy he had once been accustomed with since exiting his mother's womb.

In absolute contradiction to what he had heard from his older brothers, this didn't at all feel like that warm, fuzzy feeling both Sam and Jared had the sheer luck of receiving after having seen their imprints for the very first time. For some unexplainable reason, Seth inexorably felt as though his previous life without his newfound imprint had robbed him of his sensations, like he had been taking the air for granted at the very expense of his life. How could he not have noticed what was missing until now?

Rendered hopelessly unstable and shaky beyond anything imaginable, Seth briefly squeezed his eyes shut. Blocking the hindrances of the outside world, ignoring the sudden anxiety radiating everything, but ultimately focusing on that fact that his imprint was _here_. At last, he finally found her after so many prayers, wishes, and the hopes that he wouldn't be hurt like his older sister. He didn't realize it until everything stilled beneath him, all the tremors and pulsated pauses, and however happy he was, this was such a bad time because he was already-

- balls_ deep_ inside another girl.

This was not, never, how he ever imagined meeting his imprint – only for her to see him fucking another girl he wasn't quite sure he knew the name to. Of course, his head snapped up at the interruption, because no one ever knocked anymore, and honestly, his imprint was so utterly heartbreakingly beautiful that he couldn't help but inwardly curse at the fact_._ Not to mention the tiny, inconsolable fact that he has had a crush on this very same girl since _forever_, and now she finally came back to her home soil after having moved away these past few years ago.

God, the girl had surprisingly been Leah's closest friend before she had to move away. Lucy Weisz. He remembered the tragic sound of his heart shattering to pieces at the age of ten when pretty Lucy announced that she was going all the way to Ohio to live. But a couple weeks ago, word had gone out that she was moving back to La Push after all these years, and once he had solidified the truth from a reliable source – ahem, his mother – it had been the fucking happiest day of his life.

"Oh, _Jesus_." Her voice was pure music, even if it the statement was proclaimed in a dry way, and Seth had long ago stopped thrusting into the girl beneath him entirely. "Sorry, I just wanted to get my things before I left. I did knock though."

She muttered something else under her breath, something along the lines of: _This is all your damn sister's fault, Clearwater. _Wait...was she actually talking to him? Oh, god, she was actually acknowledging him.

Awkward did not even begin to describe what had transpired, but betrayal cut like a searing wound to his heart because the girl he had been waiting for his entire life had just caught him rutting like an animal against Cleo or Chloe or Cathy or whatever the hell her name is. Lucy had just caught him fucking a girl that wasn't _her_.

His imprint wasn't that much embarrassed – of course she wasn't – as she waltzed into the unfamiliar bedroom to make a grab at her small bag on the floor. Though rueful and perpetually disturbed at disrupting something considerably intimate, perhaps even a little sheepish, the corners of her lips twitched upward in amusement. She blinked back at them as if to say 'Er, carry on' before she pranced out the door, her face mildly strained in the effort of refraining to chuckle out loud.

Cathy let out a small sigh before placing a hand on his cheek. "Seth, she's gon—"

"No, no, _no!_" Seth let out a desperate howl, jerking away from Cathy's hand like her palm was made of hot iron. His cock was dreadfully and undeniably limp now and not even the naked female still beneath him would ever get it aroused again. "Please, wait, don't leave!" he called out fruitlessly, but the door had already closed.

"Seth..."

"_Don't fucking talk to me!"_

He was honestly a nice and kind person, even to people he didn't particularly like. But the fact that Cathy wanted to resume their sex session after being walked in on by the center of Seth's new universe just pissed him off a little.

And it was because of his lupine strength that he was able to manipulate her emotions hard enough to not only get the stupid brown-haired girl to stop attempting to get him back to bed, but also to avert her gaze so she didn't dare look at him directly. She was whimpering with the sheets straddled around her, but he didn't give a damn. It wasn't like him to use this kind of force against other people, against other humans, but it was out of fear that he believed that Lucy, his lovely imprint, was under the wrong impression about him.

Of all the wolves, Seth wanted an imprint the most. After all, he had so much love to give and he needed a special outlet to shower all that love on. He didn't think he would already _betray _his imprint after a few seconds of finally finding her. He swore he could be absolutely loyal to her if she would give him the chance-

His jeans were slung around his hips in a blink of an eye, zipped all the way up with the buttons left open in haste. He didn't bother pulling on the shirt and stormed out of the room like an absolute lunatic. Dark eyes feral, panic and anger embedded in the contours of his face, and his formidably tall body vibrating on every inch...yeah, he looked like a convict out of prison. The Pack must have known by now; he was fractured to a vulnerable state, and his inability to reign in on his emotions was probably filling each and every one of theirs.

Seth ignored the calls of his brothers, disregarded the lustful glances he received as he traipsed through the house half-naked, awe at the mercurial grace exploited from his fluid steps and astonished shock at the uncharacteristic devastation written all over his normally happy-go-lucky handsome face. The cold breeze hit him once he threw the front door open, ambling out onto the driveway in search for that pale, tawny-eyed girl with the raven hair that just had the rare happenstance of walking in on him. Shaky fingers twisted his shirt until they were torn to immeasurable pieces because _damn it_, he couldn't smell her scent anymore.

Where the hell did she go? How did she leave here so fast?

The one night he finally decided to get actually get some – because all the Pack thought that it had been a long time – and it had to end like this.

One, he didn't even know Lucy was going to make an appearance at Madeline Kemp's party. Two, he never thought he would actually imprint on her. If he had known that she would come, if he had the slightest inkling, he would have never sweet-talked Cathy into bed. Now his soul mate probably thought he was some dirty _man whore_ or something-

A large, warm hand landed on his shoulder. "Seth." He recognized his Alpha by a mere half-hearted inclination of his head, but his eyes never wavered from out of the driveway or from the foreboding woods ahead. "Seth, _look at me_."

Despite him managing to find numerous ways around his leader's orders, and he was able to pull it off a couple of times, the younger man stared into Jacob's eyes. One gaze was all it took, for Jacob to understand the knowing acknowledgment of a soul already beginning to splinter around the edges. He willed the events of the past ten minutes to run rampage through Jacob's mind through their particularly strange Alpha-Beta connection, - _gay bromance_ was what Leah liked to call it - freely letting out a shuddery sigh in remorse as he recalled the terrible events that would surely wreck the rest of his life.

"Shit," Jacob blew out the expletive like no tomorrow. "I didn't know Lucy was back already. I would've..." Would have what? There was no possible way he could have seen this coming, no way he could have ripped Seth away from that brunette bombshell in time for him to meet his future imprint.

The only reason why the Pack, all huddled around the doorway to keep the nosy onlookers from staring out at the commotion, hadn't surrounded the two yet was because of both Jacob and Seth's combined mental efforts at keeping them bay. But fuck, they wanted to comfort their Beta so badly.

_You betrayed her. _What? No, no, no, no, I didn't! I haven't – _You turned, strayed from her, from _**our**_ mate. Stupid boy, see what you have done? We need her to survive, to breathe, to _**live**_, and you threw her away for another piece of ass! _I didn't know she belonged to me yet. If I'd had known she would be here, I wouldn't have—I swear, I would have never –_ Rot in hell, rot in hell_,** ROT IN HELL, TRAITOR!**

Leah made a low, keening noise by the door frame, itching to go to her baby brother, but Jacob shook his head. Her rebellious snarl met his stony deference, yet he only held up one hand and forced her to remain where she was.

_traitor_traitor**traitor**TRAITOR-

Seth opened his mouth to speak, but he was brutally cut off by a strangled cry. Shoulders were the first to crack ominously in the silence, jutting out of their place hold awkwardly as he crumpled to the floor in a flurry, his bones slanting viciously into odd angles out of a phenomenon the Pack had never encountered or witnessed before. Veins popping through his skin, the natural sun-kissed essence of his body was quickly diluting into a sick pallor as his gasps became shakier and more unstable by the minute.

Jacob wouldn't ever let his brother fall. Catching him was imperative, but not even the Alpha's touch was sufficing enough to guide him through the dark, bleak path his Beta had been thrown in. A jerk of his chin and the whole Pack surrounded them immediately, solace waving off each other as something splintered inside of Seth - something that seemed to be the beginning of his darkest hour.

Every inch and crevice of Seth's six-foot-six body was shaking, quivering with something goddamn awful, and god, it _hurt_. There were alarmed voices all around him, but he couldn't hear a thing because fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, make it all _stop_. Seth's wolf was incredibly strong, yet he was also loyal to the laws that concerned imprinting. It was all just an accident really, but even the strongest of wolves can't get away with betraying their imprints without going into the first stages of self-destruction.

However, his wolf had already decided: the human must be punished. Seth needed to be punished.

* * *

**A/N: **I swear, the real chapters will be much longer than this. I promise I'll provide more information on why Lucy left and came back, how she's connected to the Clearwaters, and what's really happening to Seth. More importantly, should I continue this story?


	2. Chapter One

**Knotted**

**...**

Chapter One

[_One minute I held the key_]

* * *

"That's it. I'm leaving."

It was nearly midnight. Earlier, Lucy had waited for Sue Clearwater to pick her up at the Sea-Tac Airport. To be honest, she was supposed to have come down here a week later from today, but Lucy had wanted her arrival to be a surprise to her grandparents. Sue, who she had managed to keep in contact with throughout all these years, had offered to pick her up in secret. Imagine her surprise when a nice red car pulled up on the curb outside of the airport with a beautiful girl, familiar scowl and all, sitting in the driver's seat.

Well damn, so Leah Clearwater was still alive after all. Lucy had fruitlessly tried to keep in touch with Leah during her years of absence from La Push – phone calls, emails, birthday gifts; hell, even those damn hand-written letters – but the older Clearwater sibling, unlike her mother, had never responded in the same kind. But the girl had been her best friend, regardless of the age gap. Nevertheless, she had every right to assume that their friendship had soured since then.

However, once Lucy had slid into Leah's rather sleek car, wondering how anyone could afford a car like this while living on the tiny reservation, the two girls had started bantering back and forth as though she had never moved away in the first place. They argued with each other like they used to, like nothing ever happened. Leah had seemed...well, more bitter than Lucy remembered the older female being, yet she wasn't going to bring it up now, not when their lives were slowly weaving back together again. By the time the digital clock in the car had inched towards eleven-thirty, Lucy wanted nothing more than to go to sleep.

But now the two of them were loitering around Madeline Kemp's house and she still had no idea why the hell she was here.

For the record, Lucy had been promised food. Good food. Upon arriving here at Madeline's large house, there was nothing but endless kegs and empty bags of chips.

Lucy definitely remembered little ol' Maddie. Except Maddie should really be called Madeline now because the girl wasn't so _little_ anymore, considering the teenaged girl had breasts that had very high potential of poking someone's eye out. In fact, when an inebriated Madeline all but threw her entire self at Lucy's frozen form when the latter was forced to come to this party, her own chest had hurt from being squished so tightly against Madeline's dangerous and lethal bra stuffers.

She didn't even have her trusty bag with her – her bag filled with nothing but lollipops because who needs money when you could have fruity lollipops instead, right? Lucy swore that she had an unhealthy addiction with those sweet candies. She was cursing Leah in every language she knew, which wasn't all that much to begin with, because fucking Leah had ripped the bag from her hands and did God-knows-what with it the moment they had stepped through the threshold of Madeline's house.

To make matters worse, people who were sober enough to recognize Lucy or had been in the same class with her years ago started zeroing in on her until she was pathetically backed up into a corner, forced to endure the endless questions of her well being. Hey, it wasn't their fault that La Push was so pitifully boring and that Lucy moving back here was the most exciting thing to hit this town in a long while.

When she answered how it was like living in Ohio for the _fifteenth_ time – hell yeah, she had kept count of how many drunk people had asked her that very same question - she had eyed a plastic red cup in contemplation. Beer looked especially tempting now, but if she came to her new home afterward, her grandmother would be able to smell the liquor off of her, even if she wasn't all that drunk.

And that wasn't the homecoming she had envisioned with her grandparents.

"You're leaving?" Madeline pouted, her words slurring, and the poor girl was so drunk that she was already hanging heavily against Lucy, groping the paler girl in one of the most unsubtle ways known to mankind. Madeline Kemp was _straight_...wasn't she? Had things around here changed that much?

Lucy gently pried the other female's hands away from her ass. "Yeah, it's been a long day. Jet lag and all."

Yet she hesitated from leaving this _endearing_, and she was using that term very loosely, circle of drunk-assed people because Pervert Franklin over here kept looking at Madeline's treasured breasts as though he was going to eat them out. She couldn't help it if she instinctively gripped Madeline's waist and pulled her farther away from Franklin for the girl's own protection.

But Madeline took that gesture completely the wrong way. "Oh?" Even in her wasted haze, Madeline definitely noticed where Lucy's hand had tightened, even if it was purely unintentional and not at all meant as a sexual innuendo. "_Oh._ I see."

Dear Lord, the girl actually purred. Bad sign. "No, Maddie, I didn't mean anything by tha—_what the hell are you doing_?" She tried not to shriek at that, she really did, but when Madeline leaned on her tiptoes to nibble roughly at Lucy's ear while attempting to stick her hand down the back of Lucy's jeans, all propriety went straight to hell.

"Aw, man," Franklin groaned when Lucy stumbled away from Madeline, clearly discontent that he wasn't getting a front row seat to some hot girl-on-girl action as he previously thought he would get to see. Or maybe he was anxious to join the two girls.

She had been a second close from punching Franklin right in the face when she heard an irritating chuckle off to the right. Her eyes narrowed at the slender figure leaning casually against the wall, the rim of a beer bottle rested against the girl's curved mouth.

"How long were you standing there?" Lucy gritted through her teeth.

Leah shrugged before taking a generous sip of the alcoholic drink. "Long enough to see you wobbling around like an idiot while Maddie was trying to get into your pants," she added with a low chuckle.

"This is all your fault." When Leah arched an eyebrow, the other girl huffed. "You said there would be food here. Like fucking lasagna or cheesy baked potato—"

"Lu, this is a party filled with underage teens and neanderthals who never went to college. What did you expect—a five star meal? You'd be lucky if there was one slice of that greasy pizza left."

"You did say that there would be _real_ food here. That's intentionally misleading, you know."

The she-wolf rolled her eyes at the accusation, but part of Leah was eternally glad that Lucy hadn't changed one bit since she left. She was still the same girl who always thought with her stomach first before everything else. "Why, you hungry?"

"No, Lee, I'm asking for food just for the heck of it, not because I haven't eaten anything in four hours." Ah, the sarcasm was still there as well. "What'd you do to my bag?"

"You mean your shit sack full of lollipops?" When Leah had stolen the bag at the beginning, she had found it extremely odd that it was somewhat heavy by human standards. Was the girl carrying a time bomb or something? Seeing that the damn bag was filled with nothing but two bags' worth of Dum Dums made her snort, but she couldn't help but sneak a couple into her pocket. It wasn't as though Lucy would notice anyway. "I threw it in Maddie's bedroom."

Pause. Then: "Wha—why the hell would you put it in _there_?"

Lucy was far from stupid and oblivious – if there was a party that involved drinking and other harmful substances, sure enough one of the bedrooms of the host's house would most likely be occupied by a couple fucking each other. She knew goddamn well that if she were to walk up those stairs and storm straight into Madeline Kemp's bedroom, no doubt she'd find herself in a potentially awkward situation.

But she would have to take that chance if she wanted to go to her grandparents' house soon, to the nice welcoming bedroom they had spent weeks decorating in order for it to appeal to her as an average teenage girl. Honestly, all she needed was a comfortable bed with soft, warm sheets and blankets and she would consider that all good by her book.

Thinking it would fit the situation, she hummed the death march under her breath as she dragged her feet up the stairs, face appropriately pulled into a grimace. She could still hear Leah laughing her ass off from her position, although she didn't know why the girl was laughing in the first place. Could Leah actually hear her humming the quiet tune? No, that couldn't be it. For Leah to hear Lucy's interpretation of the death march beneath all this pounding music, the dark-skinned girl would have to be an abnormal super-human.

Once she reached the door that had the bright pink letters 'MK' carved against the white oak of the door, Lucy straightened the slump of her shoulders and proceeded to knock. But that would be pointless, considering the music below was currently in the process of waking up the entire town and its sleep-deprived occupants. She decided to humor herself and knocked again – she was sorely tempted to do that hilarious knocking thing Sheldon Cooper was known for, but she remembered she needed a name in order to do it properly. Oh, well.

Blinking owlishly, she carefully turned the knob. When she finally realized that it had never been locked in the first place, she wondered what kind of idiots forgot to lock the door before having wild sex on someone else's bed. Unless there was that tiny possibility that no one was really inside Madeline's bedroom. However, judging the way Madeline's _parents'_ bedroom was severely occupied, as well as the guest rooms both upstairs and downstairs, there was no chance in hell this girl's bedroom was empty.

Mentally preparing herself to be scarred for the rest of her life, she opened the door-

Holy fuck. Holy _fuck_.

No, that couldn't be Seth Clearwater. The man mounting the unfamiliar brunette on the bed was not Leah's baby brother.

In fact, there was no way in _hell_, the man Lucy saw before her was the same gangly, always too cheerful ten-year-old she recalled leaving behind before going away far off to Ohio. Last she remembered Harry and Sue's only son, he had been a boy with possibly the most pure, kindest minds out there, one with a heart so huge that he was willing to accept anyone. He blushed a lot around pretty girls too.

What the hell did she expect – for him to still look like that lanky ten-year-old boy? Okay, no, but she sure as hell didn't expect Seth to look as though he belonged on the cover of _GQ Magazine_ either. Those prominent muscles on his body? Yeah, they screamed steroid abuse out loud because normal sixteen or seventeen-year-old boys shouldn't look the way Seth looked. At the sound of Madeline's bedroom door opening, Seth peered lazily over his shoulder, as though it wasn't disconcerting at all that someone had interrupted them and-

His brown eyes widened upon looking directly at her, his body stuttering to an abrupt halt, a choked noise residing in the back of his throat.

_Well don't leave it at that. Finish it, you idiot, _was the first thing to come to mind when their gazes met. That sounded oddly voyeuristic.

The brunette girl beneath him had finally stopped moaning out Seth's name in those tedious moments, taking the time to stare up at the man in – boy? – in confusion before her eyes settled on Lucy's frame by the door.

"Oh, Jesus." It slipped out before she could filter herself. "Sorry, I just wanted to get my things before I left." Seth was still gawking at her from his frozen position when she felt the need to make a defense for herself. "I did knock though."

Lucy could still feel Seth's eyes following her every movement, his unreturned gaze wrapping her entire body in some tangible bubble that clung snugly to her skin. She could actually feel her heartbeat thrumming against her veins, the sound reverberating loudly in the cartilages of her ear. She could easily blame this on high blood pressure, since she was quietly and verbally abusing Leah's name throughout her voyage of retrieving her bag, but that was a little ridiculous because she didn't have a history with high blood pressure.

She needed to get out. Hell, screw with waiting for Leah to drop her off at her grandparents' house.

Temperature-wise, her she always felt cold by nature, which was why it was completely strange for the surface of her skin to feel as though it was blistering at the seams. Her fingers spasmodically jerked towards her bag that rested at the foot of Madeline's bed, silently willing herself to just _calm the fuck down_ because there was no plausible reason to react this way. Four hours sitting on an airplane without her necessary requirement of food every two hours was finally taking its toll on her body.

Surely, these weren't signs of having a panic attack. Contorting her face into a smile, something that was a clash between a sheepish expression and a quirk of an odd grin, her eyes unwittingly meandered back to the male who couldn't quite relinquish the hold he had on her through his own eyes. She thought it was necessary to include an apology of sorts, but then again, maybe it really wasn't. Feeling another heat wave – she needed fresh air – she pivoted out of the door, shutting it closed behind her after hearing:

"_Please, wait, don't leave!" _

Was he _insane_? Did he want a threesome like Pervert Franklin had wanted?

The tawny-eyed girl felt her respiratory rate spike up exponentially by the time she dropped back downstairs, a repetitive and hopefully temporary echo in her ears. She snuck her way out through the floor filled with music, booze, and too much torridity, managing to escape right from under Leah's nose as she frantically sprinted out through the front door. Pupils dilating, loss of peripheral vision, blood shunting away into the stream that ran through her small muscles and limbs, trembling body coiling tighter than a wire-

Luck was on her side when she noticed that the window to Leah's red car was rolled all the way down, allowing her to strike her arm through the open window to retrieve her large duffle bag of belongings before bolting down the street.

One part of her berated her for running away for no particular reason. Lucy never ran away from things – that was a verifiable truth. But a larger, incomprehensive part of her didn't give a damn. Right when Seth had desperately called after her, Lucy had experienced the uncomfortable sensation of spiraling into a fight-or-flight response. She couldn't summon enough embarrassment to acknowledge the fact that she had automatically chosen flight, that she was running away from a threat that didn't really exist.

She didn't stop running until she was seven blocks away from Madeline Kemp's house.

Her recovery on the matter was just as quick as it had come to her, succinctly cutting her off from her emotions. Dulled from her senses for a very brief moment of passing, like she was doped on Valium, she managed to cough out a throaty exhale before feeling her body revert back to it's prior normalcy. Huh. That was rather strange. God, what a fucking understatement.

Glad that her fingers weren't shaking anymore, Lucy opened her smaller bag and immediately made a grab for three different-colored Dum Dums, apprehensively sticking all three of them into her mouth. She forced herself to breathe continually through her nose while her tongue swirled around the flavors of watermelon, cotton candy, and bubble gum. It was an awful combination, but apparently, her mind had stopped working since she walked in on Seth and that brunette doing the horizontal tango, so the taste didn't matter to her.

It dawned onto her that she was still acting quite bizarre without a clear reason the moment her grandparents' house came in view. It was just as she remembered it – the typical cookie-cutter house with the white picket fence bordering it. The small garden of tulips was new though, the patch of the bright colors being an offspring of a recent hobby her grandmother had recently decided to uphold. The old rocking chair was even still sitting off to the side of the front porch, just waiting for someone to sit down on it.

Unlike her last occurrence with a door, she didn't have to wait long for it to open.

Grandma Clarisse hadn't changed much either throughout the years. She was still pretty youthful, despite her age, and her vibrant blue eyes widened comically when settling on the younger girl. Awareness of her granddaughter washed all smidgens of sleep. After feeling harassed this entire night, it felt good to laugh when the frail-looking – but certainly by no means – woman pulled her into a tight hug.

"Hey, I missed—_ow!_" Lucy finished indignantly when Clarisse smacked her sharply on the forearm after dosing her in one of her sweet grandmotherly embraces. A curse began and rapidly died in her throat – the swear words alone would have guaranteed her another smack, no doubt. "Jeez, Grams, what large hands you have."

"All the better to hug you with, my dear," Clarisse responded back just as dryly, a sign that Lucy inherited some of that humor from her. "Thomas? _Thomas!_ Get your wrinkly rear end down here and greet your granddaughter properly!" she poked her head back into the house to yell at her still-slumbering husband before turning to Lucy once more. "How are you even here, dear? And why didn't you tell us you were coming? We're not nearly prepared—oh, my dear Lord, did you _walk_ all the way here from the airport?"

Lucy gave her a pointed look. "I would barely be standing if I walked all the way here from Seattle."

"But who picked you—?"

"Damn you, woman," called out a very grumpy voice in the background. "Are you trying to wake the whole neighborhood up?"

Clarisse merely rolled her eyes at the tone. "Don't mind your ridiculous grandfather, Lucy. He's in one of his _moods_ again. You would think that the man is on his menstrual cycle all because I forced him to eat his vegetables. He complains that I don't cook more steak for him like I used to, but you know he has high cholesterol and _red meats are not part of the diet_." She made the last part of that sound like a clear threat towards her grandfather.

"To hell with the diet! At this rate, I would rather die than eat...what was that goddamn awful thing you fed me for dinner?"

"Asparagus, you fool."

Based on what was transpiring right before her very eyes, one wouldn't believe that this was the town's sweetest elderly couple. In public, the two held hands and exchanged cute little kisses and even went on _dates_ every Friday night like it was tradition. But there were times where her grandfather would tease her grandmother – and those were usually the times where an argument would spark – yet out of all the times where they expressed their love, Lucy thought that their squabbling was the most endearing to see.

She was broken away from her thoughts when Grandpa Thomas asked, "And who the hell is standing outside our door at this time?"

"Don't you dare speak to Lucy that way!" Clarisse admonished with increasing vexation as she moved her body to the side to reveal Lucy's amused expression to the old man.

The way Thomas looked at Lucy was reminiscent of a little child during the morning of Christmas. "Is that you, sweet cheeks?" Lucy's heart warmed at the old nickname she hadn't heard in so long. She was quickly swallowed up in Thomas' arms, feeling too much like a kid again before hugging him back.

Her grandfather was a direct descendent of one of the purest Quileutes here and he was the reason why she herself was one-fourth Quileute, even if that acknowledgement was nearly unnoticeable in her features. His age said one thing, but his body structure clearly said another. In fact, her grandfather must have topped all the other grandfathers in La Push because he was an extremely tall man with broad shoulders all the like, and often times, he radiated a quiet intimidation toward others without meaning to do so.

"These cheeks get prettier every time I see you," Thomas smiled down at her warmly, a complete contrast to how he had been a few minutes prior as he gently pinched one of Lucy's cheekbones between his index finger and his thumb. "We weren't expecting you until next week."

Lucy latched onto Thomas before smiling in Clarisse's direction. "I guess I just wanted to surprise you guys."

"Oh, I forgot to ask! Are you hungry, dear?" Her grandmother regarded her with concern – something she wasn't used to while living with her own mother in Ohio.

"My god, _yes_," Lucy groaned, rubbing her stomach to annunciate her point.

Her grandparents' laughter was enough to take her mind off recent events – for now, at least.

* * *

Sue Clearwater might have been on the Council, but there were things within the Pack that even she was excluded from knowing.

So when the front door to her house was thrown open, her unconscious son being carried in by both Jacob and Sam, she didn't react like she normally would have when all of this had been newly thrust onto her a couple of years ago. There were many times where she believed that Harry was more cut out for this than she was, but there was nothing she could do about it now, was there?

"What happened?" She tried to keep her tone in control while the rest of the Pack rushed into her home.

Without doing anything at all, Paul easily replaced Jacob's position, slinging Seth's limp arm around his neck while Jacob stepped out. A knowing glance from the Alpha was all that was needed before Sam and Paul carefully ushered the Beta up the stairs and towards his bedroom. Leah gazed at Sue with a rare softness, for a short second, before she darted up after the males. Sue turned her heavy gaze back onto Jacob, instantly thinking of the worst and fearing the words that would come out of his mouth.

Jacob ran a hand through his short hair. "Seth imprinted."

Her first reaction had been to jump for joy at the newfound development. Ever since her children combusted into wolves in her backyard years ago, she had waited so long for either of them to find their soul mate and to just be happy together. But the austere expression on Jacob's face strangely didn't give her a reason to celebrate as much as she wanted to.

"And he fainted from imprinting?" Sue asked, dubious.

"...Yeah."

No, what really happened was that Seth began to reenact the Civil War against his wolf right on the front lawn of Madeline Kemp's house, and it had come to the point where his spasms and snarls were starting to gain attention from the other party-goers. Not to mention the fact that his eyes kept deviating from coffee-brown to jaundiced sulfur. Jacob had no choice but to Alpha whammy him excessively hard into oblivion, so much that he nearly broke one of his own nerves trying to restrain his Beta from heading towards self-destruction.

But he wasn't going to tell this to Sue without expecting some sort of emotional compensation from her. Such a response was expected from an involved mother like herself, and it honestly made him miss his own mother sometimes, so he wasn't willing to take the chance of having yet another Clearwater go through a mental breakdown before his very eyes. He couldn't hear Seth's thoughts at all, not with his current blank mind, but their Beta was still with them – that he was sure of.

Sue's eyes drifted up to the ceiling where she knew her son's bedroom was. "Who...who did he imprint on?"

"Lucy," Jacob responded with the barest hint of a smile.

"Lucy?" she couldn't help but repeat in absolute shock. "Lucy _Weisz_?" As in, the same Lucy she was supposed to have picked up from the airport in secrecy before Leah, who had somehow gotten knowledge that the pale girl would be arriving today, outwardly stated that she was going to pick her up instead.

"Yeah. Good timing, eh?" the Alpha grinned even wider, trying to lighten the mood.

And when Sue smiled in relief at the sudden revelation, Jacob Black truly believed that things were better off for all of them if the Clearwater matriarch remained in the dark.

* * *

Leah had a plan.

Well, she used to before her stupid brother went and fucked things up.

The plan was along the lines of something like this: Leah was going to surprise Lucy after years of silence by picking the latter girl up from the airport and she somehow knew that they would instantaneously interact with each other as though they had seen each other the day before. That was just how they worked – they still knew each other that well after all these years. And every day after Lucy moved back to sweet La Push, Leah had intended to hang out with the pale girl until it made up for the way Leah had wrongfully ignored all her letters, presents, and all the other paraphernalia Lucy had sent her that was kept locked in Leah's bottom drawer.

See, the beauty of the plan was that Leah was expressing her apology without _actually_ apologizing out loud.

Leah Clearwater didn't do apologies – not after the whole Sam and Emily affair – but she knew just as anyone else that Lucy deserved one. But this was as good as it was going to get from Leah, and deep down, she knew that Lucy would intuitively know that fact. Things would resume to the way they were between them and they would go back to making fun of anyone they each disliked together again.

But fate seemed to be the biggest bitch the Pack had the burden of dealing with on an occasional basis. Apparently, fate disliked how the Pack's only she-wolf was so wonderfully bitter all the time and decided to pay her back by fucking with her brother in return. Technically, every course of action taken during the night of the party two days ago was Leah's fault.

If she had just told Seth that she was going to pick up Lucy instead of selfishly keeping the secret between her mother and herself, he would have annoyingly tagged along with her, and sure enough, he would have imprinted on Lucy right then in there at the airport. All of them would have been spared of the mess they – _she_ – had landed themselves in. And even if Seth hadn't gone with her to Sea Tac, the blame still lead back to Leah because she was the one to make the stupid decision of leaving Lucy's bag in Madeline's bedroom; therefore, prompting to the Weisz girl to go fetch her bag of lollipops back.

She would rather jump off a cliff and not survive the landing than to feel this gnawing guilt ever again. She barely sufficed with the shit she pulled on Lucy over the years, but this thing with _Seth_? God fucking damn it all.

And speaking of her brother...Seth looked remarkably terrible.

Currently working in their mother's convenience store, the Beta sat behind the cashier counter looking thoroughly mind-fucked. Jacob had done a tremendous number on him and the whole Pack had managed to feel it and it was _awful_. There was a sick pallor swathed around his face and Leah had joked that perhaps Seth should stay home instead of going to work because based on how he looked right now, he'd be scaring away the pretty females instead of attracting them like he normally would.

Leah had expected some snarky answer back, really, but the silence was all she was met with. Hell, he even gave a slight wince when she mentioned the matter of other pretty females. She couldn't believe she was admitting to this, but she would rather him babble on about his day in that irritatingly chipper voice she knew of so well rather than being dealt with his absence of sound.

"Seth, just go home. I can handle it here."

No answer. Of course.

"Alright, fine, if you want to be a complete—"

"_Leah." _It was no more than a whisper, but it was enough to effectively shut the she-wolf up. She watched with an increasingly bad conscience at the way his eyes fluttered close, hints of pain etched across his face, before languidly opening them again. He exhaled as though it took so much effort into just breathing regularly. "I'm fine, okay? No need to worry."

"Me? Please." But even that didn't even pull out a small smile from Seth and Leah was starting to run out of options here. She suppressed a sigh, tucking it back into her mouth. "Mom's getting worried. She knows you finally imprinted."

"Does she know _how_ I did it? Bet you she wouldn't be so proud of me after knowing that."

The elder Clearwater gritted her teeth together. "Seth, you do realize that you and Lucy aren't even together, right?" That prompted another wince from Seth, much more visible this time, but Leah plowed forward. "I don't know what the fuck is wrong with your wolf, but what you did wasn't considered cheating. To pull that off, you'd have to already be in a relationship. Sorry, little bro, but no matter how many times you thought of Lucy—and the whole Pack knows of your fucking obsession with her, trust me—you guys weren't a couple."

Because Leah Clearwater would know everything about cheating.

Okay, so Sam never cheated on her, but considering what he did afterward, he might as well have.

"You weren't there, Leah. She suddenly came in and she _caught_ me in the mid—" The rest of his words were muffled by an arduous gasp, the arching sound causing Leah's wolf to snarl viciously because their Beta, her _brother_, furled back into that chasm of pain. Seth's hand, the one that had been curled around the counter's edge, inadvertently broke off an abundant part of the sleek wood until it left that part of the table into jagged splinters.

Leah jumped up from her sitting position atop the stool and cautiously sniffed the air. Apples, a little dash of honeysuckle...she followed the familiar scent towards the transparent door of the store, her stomach dropping when she found Lucy sauntering to the front entrance of the place, an arm thrown casually, lovingly, around her grandmother's small shoulders. Seth was already halfway leaned across the counter, his eyes changing into that terrifying crazy blend of yellow and brown again as he caught whiff of his imprint.

A blaring roar resounded in her head and she couldn't help but shudder at the weight of the Alpha's anger around her. She was caught in between noting Jacob of what had exactly occurred and attempting to haul Seth's ass back over the counter and no, Lee-Lee, this really wasn't Seth they were dealing with anymore. Of course Leah knew that, Jacob, she didn't need him to reiterate for her. Jacob cursed because he was in Port Angeles with Renesmee and there was no way he would get there in time, so Leah would have to handle it for a short while.

Fine, whatever, just hurry your ass over here, Jake, before Seth tears this place down. What the fuck do I do? She could hear Jacob pace heavily outside a small ice cream store in Port Angeles before he let out a low growl and fuck it, Leah, I'm already controlling him from where I am. He was? Leah spared her crazy brother another glance before deciding that Jacob needed to put a whole lot more of Alpha behind that command because Seth looked torn from trying to kill himself and running out the front door to grovel before his imprint's feet.

Leah bit herself from letting out a scream, yelling at Jacob to fucking put her brother down already, no matter how hard it would be to watch him do so. I can't—this fucker's gotten control of Seth and he won't listen to my order. His wolf was pulling the imprint-trumps-Alpha card and that allowed him to somehow bypass whatever other restraint Jacob had already forced upon his back. Lee-Lee, just hide him behind the counter and keep him quiet, alright? I'll be there soon. And hell, Leah freaked out when Jacob left the recesses of her mind to deal with this by herself.

_You better be sending backup, you asshole,_ Leah thought to herself, to the quaking silence that no lonely wolf should have to endure.

With every strength she could possibly summon in that moment, Leah gripped the back of Seth's shirt and dragged her huge brother over and under the cashier counter, snapping her teeth once when showed resistance.

"Listen to me, you little fucker," she rammed his head roughly against the solid wood behind his back. "Lucy's seconds away from walking through that front door and if you care about her as much as you claim to, then _stop_. You want to teach my brother a lesson for fucking with another girl? Fine. Do it when my Alpha's here to moderate your ass. Seth, if you're still in there, get your control back. If you start fighting with your wolf now, Lucy and her grandmother will get hurt."

She supposed her little monologue was enough, for now, to get this damn wolf to listen to his senses. With an impetuous lurch, Seth surfaced once more and promptly threw the wolf in the darkest corner of his mind where the animal would chew on its tail rabidly until their imprint was out of the store, safe and sound from them. And it was so wrong because Lucy was supposed to be safe _with_ them, not _from_ them. Never from them.

"L-Leah?" Seth choked, his eyes widening just as the bells atop the front entrance finally jingled.

"Shut up," she whispered back, though not as unkindly as she normally would have said it. Another wary glance in Seth's direction before she stood up and forced a small smile onto her face.

The she-wolf listened in as Clarisse and Lucy Weisz argued on whether or not Dum Dums were considered as cooking staples.

"Oh, get that baking powder for me, dear. I'm far too old to be reaching for that top shelf."

"Can we get Dum Dums too? I usually eat two bags a week. Three if I'm lucky."

"We're here to get staples, not luxuries."

"Grams, lollipops _are_ staples. They're always going to be staples."

Seth let out a painful whine once he heard Lucy's voice float to his ears. He was one of the best in the Pack at maintaining control, so he couldn't fully understand why all that hard work was being flung right back to his face. Even while sitting in that corner, restrained on his haunches, the wolf still scorned the male with every temperament befitting a beast. _You don't deserve to hear her voice, traitor._ _She will never forgive you. She was _**ours**_ and you wrecked it. You call yourself a descendent of Taha Aki? No honor, no honor, no honor-_

"Snap. Out. Of. It," Leah hissed through her clenched teeth, aiming a kick to Seth's side while never once lifting her gaze from the Weisz women, who were still roaming around the store.

Leah was great at putting up fantastic fronts, but when Seth tucked his head between his knees, shifting into an even more desolate position against the counter, she was beginning to feel the fear she was never going to admit she actually had.

When his imprint's scent suddenly changed, Seth sighed against his leg. "She smells happy."

"That's because her grandmother finally agreed into getting two bags of those Dum Dums."

Perhaps it wasn't the best time for it, considering his dire situation, but Seth smiled faintly at the statement. His imprint was _happy_. The wolf tilted his head to the side, pondering, and crooned softly to Lucy's exuberance. This sensation would abate him for a while until after she left the store. Maybe more if Seth was lucky.

There had been a large grin planted across her face, because Clarisse finally agreed to the merits of Dum Dums, but when Lucy neared the cashier counter, the expression slowly fell to pieces. In place was a small inkling of anxiety – the same one that had collided into her during Madeline's party, the very one that had monopolized her into thinking that it would be better for her if she ran.

"_No." _Leah shoved at Seth's shoulder when he attempted to get up. They had both smelled the trickle of unexplained fear that seeped into the pale girl's scent and surely it was expected of him to protect his imprint at all cost, no matter the reason.

"She's _scared_, Leah. She—" _needs me_ would have been tagged to the end of that, had it not been for Jacob locking him down in that particular moment. Unable to stand against the command, he fought the resisting growl that threatened to escape from his lips. It would definitely reveal his special hiding spot.

"Hey, Lee?" The aforementioned girl broke away from her struggle with Seth once Lucy spoke her name. She took it as a means to finally ring up the items, but Lucy's caramel gaze remained fixated on Leah. "By any chance...is Seth around here? You know, in the store?"

Leah had been fully prepared to kick Seth again, but it surprised her when he just froze in place, awkwardly hunched over.

"Why would you ask that?" Leah blinked a couple of times before totaling the amount.

_Because I felt something weird happen to me during the night of the party,_ Lucy thought wryly. _I felt it when I caught_ _your brother having wild sex with some random girl and I just thought he was here somewhere because that would only explain why I'm getting this weird feeling again in the first place. You get me, Lee?_

"Do you see Seth around here, Lucy?" Clarisse responded back with a roll of her eyes before she handed Leah the exact right amount of money. "Those lollipops are doing something to your brain and not for the better. Have a nice day, dear," she chirped that last part towards Leah before grabbing her bag of things and walking out the door.

But the look in Lucy's eyes – it was as though she knew Seth was here. She _knew_. Nevertheless, she shrugged it off and handed Leah her laziest smile yet before trailing behind her grandmother, immediately coming up with a comeback against Clarisse's comment towards her.

The Clearwaters remained dreadfully silent as they heard the clicks of Clarisse's car doors opening and closing. They remained silent as said car pulled out from the front of the store, backing up onto the street. They remained silent until they couldn't hear that car's tires streak against the old pavement of the ground beneath it anymore.

"Tell Brady and Collin to keep an eye on her while she's at school," was the first thing to come out of Seth's mouth. He sounded exhausted, and rightfully so, but this was nowhere near over. "I obviously can't come to school, but it'll be Lucy's first day there tomorrow and I don't want anyone or anything bothering her. I want her safe and protected—_not a single scratch on her_."

It wasn't a Beta order, but Leah heard him. Judging by the two howls that echoed in the distance, she reckoned that the two youngest wolves of the Pack heard him as well. Leah snorted at it, wondering what dangers laid in a simple high school because the only thing she could think of were bitchy girls, boring teachers, and horny under-produced boys. But Seth imperceptibly curled his upper lip over his teeth in reminiscence of a warning snarl, clearly offended by his sister's snort, and Leah stopped.

She was still annoyed though.

"Now what?" she muttered, raising her eyebrow at him. Because Seth was at a much higher rank than her, it was getting uncomfortable standing over him, so she – and this came with indignation by the way – lowered herself until her head was at level with his shoulders. Her brother being Beta fucking sucked sometimes. "So Jake's going to perform some wolf exorcism on you and then you're good to go?"

Seth chuckled humorlessly at that. "We're containing my wolf, not getting rid of it."

"What am I supposed to tell Mom?"

"Make up something," Seth nudged her with his shoulder, and for a slight second, he resembled _her _Seth again. "Be creative."

Leah Clearwater loved her younger brother – no one could deny this. The times she showed her love for him were few and rare in between, but when she did, you couldn't say that she _didn't_ love Seth unless you wanted her to eat you for dinner. Rubbing her eyes irritably, she let her head fall against Seth's broad shoulder.

"I just hate the fact that your life depends on that asshole."

Another chuckle, this one more real than the last one. "That's our Alpha you're talking about, Lee."

"I know."

* * *

**A/N:** So, a _real_ chapter, as promised. 7,000 words isn't too much for a chapter, right? I'll admit - I've rewritten this chapter over so many times and it still doesn't feel right to me. I don't know why. Sorry about the lack of interaction between Seth and Lucy in this chapter. If it doesn't happen in the next chapter, then it will definitely happen in the chapter after that, and they'll actually interact with each other for more than five minutes this time.

This story is AU-ish in the following ways: Jacob didn't imprint on Renesmee, Rachel and Paul never happened, and of course, they're all in one pack.

Anyway, thank you so much for favoriting/following this story and for leaving reviews. I received TEN for the prologue alone, which was seven more reviews than I had originally expected to get. Special thanks to my very first reviewers: _d112hpfan, winstonwolfe, Mylanta56, ann, MusicIsForever, ARose94, Super Nerd Bomber, SmellTheFlowers, _and all the other anonymous reviewers!

Next chapter: Brady, Collin, and Lucy in high school. _Fun_. Oh, and Jacob performs his 'wolf exorcism' on Seth.

I changed my penname by the way - not to confuse anyone! It used to be **ferb**. As you can tell by now, it has been changed to **little red cardigan**. Okay. Please leave a review? :)


	3. Chapter Two

**A/N: **Fifteen reviews for the last chapter. You guys are amazing! :)

Special thanks to those who reviewed for the last one: _d112hpfan, winstonwolfe, Mylanta56, Super Nerd Bomber, SmellTheFlowers, PrissyKyle, xSquishable, TheGirlBehindTheRayBans, Ceasar-Flickerman, Coffeebean Queen, _and all my other anonymous reviewers! And also thanks to those who favorited/followed this story. Hope you enjoy this chapter!

* * *

**Knotted**

**...**

Chapter Two

[_Blew down the doors to let me in_]

* * *

He stretched up to his elbows, his features adorned with a special smile while he smoothly parted her raven hair to the side to reveal the opalescent column of her elegant neck. His nose took its time skimming the length of her skin, snuffing his way into her scent. With a devious glint, his pressed an open-mouthed kiss against the base of her throat, mouthing his way up the arched pillar, pooling kisses around her chin. He hummed in satisfaction when he felt her hands coming to gently cradle his neck, prompting him to turn even more lascivious in his ministrations.

Seth's tongue swished out rhythmically before the rows of his teeth pushed together to tease her skin. As her breathy intakes turned sharper and more distinct to his sensitive ears, his bites on her throat became harder, the near quiet sounds coming out of that pretty mouth encouraging him to leave dark purple love-bites all over the snow that was her neck. His hand strayed on its own accord, finding a way to slip under her jean-clad leg and stroke along the slender contours of her thigh.

"We're not having sex out here in the open, are we?" Lucy suddenly pulled away, inquiring with an arched eyebrow.

"What we're doing is completely harmless, pretty girl," he nuzzled her neck, generously inhaling her in like an addict that clearly needed to be restrained back by metal chains before things had the chance to get out of hand in such a setting. "We're in an empty meadow in the middle of nowhere. No one would have the right mind to hike up here in this weather."

There weren't any signs of a sun being spotted in the sky, as usual, but that didn't make this day any less beautiful. The gray clouds above looked tremendously ominous and there was a chance that it would rain soon, but honestly, Seth had an inordinate amount of trouble paying attention to the weather when his hands were already roaming all around her lissome body. A grin flittered through his face before he quickly flipped them over, his wolf rumbling in delight at the sight of her thighs straddling his waist.

"I could get sick in this weather," she noted pointedly at him, stifling a chortle once she felt a large bulge immediately touch the underside of her leg. "You remember the last time I got sick? You reacted to it way worse than my grandma did, Seth."

Seth pouted back at her. "I wouldn't let you get sick." He leaned up languidly, abnormal heat becoming more palpable between their tightly pressed bodies as he nipped the corner of her mouth, feeling her smile against his lips.

He made another comment on how he would be taking _great_ care of her for the next three hours or so – four if he didn't have to patrol anytime soon. His fingers worked rapidly on the buttons of her shirt, pushing aside the panels of the shirt to see unblemished milky skin and small breasts being secured by a nice, navy-blue colored bra. And every time he had the extreme luck of seeing his imprint like this, his heart never failed to jump directly to his throat.

"Harmless, huh?" she retorted wryly the moment large and deft fingers reached around to unclip her bra.

The Beta blinked twice, suddenly finding his damp cheek pressed against the gritty ground.

Goddamned reality finally settled over him as his muscles constricted over in straining exertion, beads of sweat sliding over slicked-over throbbing skin. Balancing his body on his two hands, which abruptly felt like dead weight to him, took more effort than he thought it would, and he couldn't remember blackening out in the first place.

Hearing Leah pace around in frustration in the Black household was nearly indistinctive to his ear drums now, and even in his unwarranted disposition, he made the connection that most of his senses were barred from him, just because he was playing a precarious, life-threatening game of tug-of-war with this fucker of a wolf for total control of his entire body. Losing control was unacceptable, but surrendering his life to this animal would be purely unforgivable.

Letting a harsh intake of air collide with his clenched teeth, he looked up idly – breathe, just _breathe_ – to see the Alpha's russet head lowered to his level, his large muzzle just brushing the crown of Seth's head. The giant wolf's face remained as stoic as any lupine animal would be in this situation, dipping his head to rest under his Beta's chin when the latter dared slip on his hands. He let out a low growl before slipping out again, watching impassively as Seth attempted to steady himself once more.

"Hurts..." He didn't want to admit to this – it just slipped out through small, hoarse respiration.

Again, Seth. You have to. For Lucy, you _have_ to.

For pretty girl? Yes, for her, only for her, for her always-

The cacophony of thunder that bristled in the skies was loud enough to cover most of Seth's screams.

* * *

Her grandmother had packed her what was called a Turkey Caprese Panini – a sandwich composed of turkey, sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese spread, red onion, and spinach. Her Yogi Bear lunchbox also included a sliced arrangement of carrots, cucumbers, and apples.

It was, by far, the healthiest lunch she had ever eaten to date.

And if it was healthy, it most likely meant that her grandfather disliked the lunch. Well, food was food and if it was good, Lucy was willing to eat anything. She placed a cucumber between her teeth before returning her gaze back to the sketchbook on her lap.

As far as first days at school went, she wasn't all that surprised to find herself currently friendless. Most people who were at Madeline Kemp's party had been too drunk to realize that she had been there at all and had resorted to just staring at Lucy for long amounts of time, wondering why in the hell she had seemed so familiar to them before. But oddly enough, the moment her classmates stared way too long for her liking, they would look over her shoulder and freeze before hastily looking away.

This happened many times throughout the first half of the day – they would stare, she would get irritated, they would look over her shoulder and quickly look away as though they had seen something truly terrifying, and Lucy would turn around in her position only to find two hulking boys – they could have been Seth's cousins for all she knew – with their heads lowered, preventing her from seeing their faces. And she might have been imaging this too, but she could have sworn she heard soft growling directed at those who openly stared at her.

She avoided Madeline Kemp in general. It was challenging for Lucy to look at the other girl's face without feeling uncomfortable.

Since sitting in the school's cafeteria would only make her situation akin being looked at like a weird-looking fish in a tank, it was better to just have her lunch outside for today...and the rest of the school year. Despite the dramatic spectacle of the thunder in the sky, she thought it was a good day by Washington's standards. Amongst the green sea of grass and weeds, there was a random sunflower sprouting up from where she was sitting under a shaded tree.

There were surely more intriguing things to sketch about around the school, but apparently, the random sunflower with a tiny ladybug sitting on one of it's petals somehow managed to draw her attention. As she shaded in the outline of a petal, she couldn't help but wish that she knew how to use colors well enough to fully complete the artwork. Lucy had tried painting once and it had turned out horrible – the end result looked as though a baby had chewed up some crayons before barfing it all over the canvas. It was a painfully-acknowledged implication that she was absolutely shit at colors and that she should just stick to charcoal and pencils for the rest of her life.

"See? Told you she'd be out here...stop freaking out now, Collin..."

Her ears perked up at the voice, the pencil stilling between her fingers.

"Do you not understand the words 'not a single scratch on her'? We're supposed to—"

"We're supposed to watch her, not _stalk_ her..."

"Shut the fuck up, Brade! You're whispering too loud...do you think she can hear us?"

"Oh, she can _definitely_ hear you two."

Collin let out a squeak – and for the record, it was a very manly squeak – when someone far too feminine to be Brady answered him instead of his best friend. Both males whirled around to see light brown eyes look up at them blandly, one of her eyebrows lifted up into a perfect arch, silently waiting. Collin fumbled inwardly before smiling brightly at her and Lucy would have believed that smile had it not been for the fact that she had heard the guy yell out the girliest shriek she had ever heard in her life just a few seconds beforehand.

The second boy merely rolled his eyes at his friend's behavior. "I'm Brady." Judging by his tone, she assumed that Brady was far too used to Collin's strange antics by now. "This idiot here is Collin," he gestured to the other one before plopping down on the grass right beside Lucy, already helping himself to one of her carrots. "And we're your new best friends."

Just when the carrot was making its way down Brady's throat, Lucy narrowed her eyes at him. "Who the hell said you could eat my food?"

Brady jerked at the dangerously quiet voice, gagging on the small piece of the carrot as a natural reflex. She was the Beta's imprint, which already made her surpassingly and immeasurably dominant towards most of the lower ranked wolves in the Pack, even if she wasn't a wolf herself. Brady, who was rather low on the pecking order of their lupine hierarchy, couldn't spit out the rest of the carrot because he had swallowed it so he had no choice but to turn his head and bare his throat to the girl – a renowned sign of vulnerability.

Even Collin, who was slighter lower than Brady on the scale of wolfish things, rattled his entire body at the sound of her voice as he instantly threw himself towards the ground, curling himself into a semi-ball to make it appear as though Lucy was taller than him while still stuck in a sitting position. They had only properly met her for a total of two minutes, but the subtle authority in her tone rang with a clarity that was rather absent in the other imprints.

"Um..." she stared at the two younger boys, wondering why the males here were all so fucking weird. Her eyes wavered at the submissive postures they were displaying, not quite understanding it yet, and she wrinkled her nose. "I was kidding, Brady." She didn't miss the way the aforementioned boy shivered with relief; Collin, on the other hand, still remained in his vertical foetal position. "You guys can take whatever you want, but lay off the sandwich. That one's mine."

They understood that to the point where neither of them was particularly willing enough to take anything from the archaic lunchbox at this point. That is, until Lucy picked up a carrot and intentionally threw it at Collin's eye, earning her an indignant yelp. Brady barked out a laugh and everything was okay again, so she guessed.

"So," Lucy started idly while she ran the tip of her pencil across the sketch once more, "why exactly do you want to be my friends? I'm not sure if I'm completely comfortable with hanging around a bunch of stalkers."

"Told you," Brady muttered, giving Collin a pointed glance before cautiously going for a cucumber.

Collin ignored him, eyeing the delicious Turkey Caprese Panini sadly. "It's your first day here." He sighed as he moved his hand towards the carrots, the sandwich taunting him with its' very mocking presence. He grew even more depressed when Lucy proceeded to eat the whole thing right in front of him. "And we want you to have the best experience at our teeny-tiny high school. Plus, pretty girls shouldn't be sitting alone all by themselves."

She barely looked up from her sketchbook. "If that's your attempt at flirting, Collin, then I feel really bad for every single girl here."

His flush of embarrassment went along to the symphony of both Lucy and Brady's joined laughter. "Hey! I'm being _nice_. Pick on Brady, not me!"

Lucy pretended to study Brady shrewdly before she shrugged her shoulders. "No. You're much more fun to tease, Collin."

"She's being mean, Brady."

"Dude, I'm actually starting to like her. I also don't care if she picks on you or not, so suck it up."

"You're seriously picking her over your best—"

"Are you guys going to bitch at each other like I'm not even here again?" Lucy didn't even bother suppressing her smile as she leaned forward, oddly interested in the way they argued with each other. "Aw, I really think that's cute. It reminds me of the way my grandma and grandpa bicker at one another—"

"You did not just compare us to your grandparents," Brady told her stoically at the exact same time Collin had yelled: _"We're not an old married couple!"_

The only female there tweaked her lips in amusement. "I never said you were married to him, Collin. But, hey, if I've got my facts wrong about you two, feel free to correct me as much as you want. I swear, I'm not anti-gay or anything," she added with a small chuckle, just enjoying how easily flustered Collin could get by a mere set of harmless words.

"Man," Collin passed an unsuspecting Lucy a mutinous glance, observing her as she was about to close her sketchbook. Unthinkingly, he uttered under his breath, "Seth imprinted on a crazy one."

At the mentioning of Seth's name, she accidentally let the edge of one of her sketchbook papers slide against the surface of her index finger. Normally, she could withstand most of the pain that had the chance of befalling on her, but paper cuts were the worst of all to bear with. She would rather skin her knee over and over again than receive a stupid paper cut.

Brady swerved around Lucy to shove roughly at Collin's shoulder. "Fucking shut up, Collin! Don't go saying things like—" he abruptly halted in his angry tirade, and she swore he paused to take a quick sniff. The Beta's imprint smelled like she was in minor pain, and as infinitesimal as it was, the scent of hurt was still there. "Oh, _shit_. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit..." he murmured when his eyes finally landed on the blood the coated her finger. Based on smell alone, he could tell that it was a deep one.

After spending most of the lunch period with these two, Lucy could definitely confirm that Collin was the weirder of the two, judging by the way he looked as though he was going to faint at the sight of a simple paper cut.

"_Not a single scratch on her_, Brade!" It sounded as though Collin was quoting someone, but Lucy couldn't really tell, considering he was actually hyperventilating before her very eyes. "Fuck, what do we do?"

"_We're_ not doing anything," Lucy cut in, trying to insert herself back into the conversation when it was clear that they were excluding her from it yet again. She placed her bleeding finger into her mouth, disliking the taste of her own blood immediately. The tangy taste of copper was the least preferable thing to drink. "Honestly, it's just a scratch. We have to get to class anyway," she said, right when the bell rang loudly across the school.

"Fuck class," was Brady's eloquent response. "We're taking you to the nurse, okay? Don't panic."

Don't panic? Weird thing to say. But before Lucy could reply, Collin interjected with a meek: "I'm not panicking all that much." Well, his highly apprehensive tone suggested otherwise.

"Not _you_," Brady snapped back at Collin. "Quick, get her things."

"You guys are acting as if the world is ending—" Lucy began to scoff at the same moment Brady picked her up without any hesitation whatsoever. "Hey...?" And then he sprinted towards the nurse's office, leaving Collin behind to gather her things together.

However, Lucy was surprised to find that Collin was keeping up to Brady's pace from behind, the strap of her rucksack already slung over a muscled shoulder. Her surroundings were starting to morph into a hazy blur and she wondered how fast Brady was really running. The fact that Collin remained dutifully instep with his friend just caused even more of her suspicions to rise. With the way they was full-on sprinting, it was a miracle that these two boys didn't hit anyone.

The entire school had practically seen them running for their lives towards the nurse's office. In fact, said nurse jumped a few feet in the air when they unceremoniously barged in through the door with an explosive bang.

"Dear _Lord_—" the nurse gasped, her hand flying to her chest.

"Ma'am, Lucy's hurt," Collin was the first to speak.

"What's..." the female nurse took a moment to gather herself, becoming quite startled when Brady let out an impatient growl. She widened her eyes at him before finally composing herself. "What's the injury?"

"Paper cut," Lucy admitted, her voice vacant of any emotion because this entire situation was just _ridiculous_.

Collin nodded in affirmation. "Yeah, can you clean it up before it gets infected? Oh, and put three bandages on it, please."

Lucy shot Collin a look that, in words, told him that he was taking this too far than it already was. "Are you fucking kidding me, Collin?"

"She's right." When Brady agreed with her, she couldn't help but grin at that. "Three isn't enough. Put on five."

The temptation to burst out laughing was huge, but once she noticed that Brady was completely serious on the matter, she gave up. Having forgotten that she was still reclining in Brady's huge arms, she let herself be carried over to one of the small cots. With both Brady and Collin practically breathing down her neck, the poor nurse worked herself into a sweat for simply cleaning up the small wound. When the nurse rubbed some antibiotic ointment on that made her finger sting, Brady visibly tightened his eyes and Collin made a soft noise.

Brady then grunted, marking the slight noise as an implication for the nurse to hurry the process up. Proving that he had more manners than his best friend, Collin still insisted in a mesh of politeness and urgency that there still needed to be three bandages instead of the standard one. The nurse, feeling harassed and confused and frightened all in one, wrapped Lucy's finger in the three bandages without any further questions asked. When she was done, the nurse mumbled something about work before disappearing into the back of the office.

"Jeez," Lucy muttered sardonically, shaking her head at the two males left in the room with her. "Nice job, guys. Another minute in here with you two and she would have had a heart attack."

"Seth is going to kill us," Collin whispered quietly to Brady. "After he gets his control back, and he will, we're dead."

"You seriously need to stop mentioning his name out loud, and _yes_, I fucking know what 'not a single scratch on her' means. Stop repeating that phrase like a fucking lunatic!" Brady hissed back, and from Lucy's point of view, they might as well have started bickering on a solely different subject like the old married couple they truly were and claimed not to be.

Somewhere between their arguing, Lucy tried to make her escape. But the minute she grabbed her bag and stalked out the door, the heavy footsteps that followed her ensured that there was no getting rid of them.

"Thank you," she told them a few minutes into walking down the hallway. "Even though you two completely overreacted, I've never been rushed liked that to the nurse's office for something as small as a paper cut. So thanks for the unique...experience."

"Just don't get it infected," Brady grumbled, yet there was a faint blush decorating his cheeks at receiving her appreciation.

"You like Yogi Bear?" Collin asked next, gesturing to the lunch box held by her uninjured hand.

Lucy smiled for no reason before answering. "No, this was my father's. I mean, it'd be weird if he had one of Wonder Woman or one filled with pretty little ponies, right?"

Collin rolled his eyes, wondering why he even asked. And then: "Okay, what about the cookbook?"

"You carry a _cookbook_ in your bag?" Brady added in, sniggering.

"Yes." Lucy was slightly affronted that he was even laughing in the first place. "When I'm stressed or just plain annoyed, I like to look at the pictures. It's kind of a therapeutic process for me and it always makes me hungry, but I guess I'm a masochist that way."

Of course they started laughing in her expense and the two didn't stop until she was standing right outside the door of the next class. Despite the cause for their shared humor, their loud laughter was pretty infectious and Lucy couldn't help but grin along with them. At least this was better than the both of them going absolutely mental on her just because she lost a tiny ounce of blood.

"Well, see you tomorrow!" Collin called after her boisterously when she was partially through the entrance of the classroom.

"Yeah, sure. Why not." Okay, so she _could_ have sounded more enthusiastic than that. Nevertheless, Collin and Brady resorted back to their chuckling, turning in the opposite direction of where their classes were supposed to be.

Her teacher gave her a scowl when she entered, already summing up that Lucy was probably the typical procrastinating student who would always be late to his class – and he wasn't entirely wrong about that either. Mr. Chamuel was a no-nonsense type of man and he had taught here long enough to know that students like Collin Littlesea, Brady Fuller, and Seth Clearwater, who frequently skipped every other day of the school week, weren't worth teaching. Brady had showed some promise, based on his natural intellects alone, even Seth, but Collin was a lost case.

And if Lucy Weisz continued to hang out with boys from that damn _gang_, then she was probably a lost case too.

"Just find an empty seat," Mr. Chamuel harrumphed at her.

She had the balls to raise an eyebrow at him before wandering around the room for the empty seat. There was one, but it was at a table filled with what she supposed were the 'popular' girls here at this high school. As soon as the chattering group noticed that she was dragging her feet towards their way, they verbally assaulted her with the following:

"Oh my gosh, you were escorted here by Brady Fuller _and_ Collin Littlesea!"

"They're two of the hottest boys in school! All we're missing is Seth—"

"You're soooo lucky!"

"Carrie, you saw the way Brady carried her during lunch right? It was so..."

After a minute of hearing nothing but this, Lucy turned away from that group and headed towards another empty chair.

As a new student, it was probably what one shouldn't do on their first day here. It was a little – downright – rude and she sure as hell didn't make a good impression with those girls, but she wasn't going to spend the next hour listening to those girls talk about which guy was the hottest at this school or which guy had the biggest cock. Ironically enough, the only empty chair left was the one next Madeline Kemp. She was surprised to see the girl sitting alone.

"Hello," Lucy coughed out awkwardly before she sat down and slumped in the seat, quickly trying to balance the chair on two legs. The other girl looked amused when Lucy crossed her ankles and placed them atop the desk. Mr. Chamuel, having already assigned some assignment on the board, didn't pay attention to this at all.

"Hey," Madeline averted her gaze, biting her lip. "Um, I...I'm sorry about what happened last Friday. That wasn't me."

"You actually remember what happened?"

Madeline nodded, having a hard time keeping eye contact with the pale girl. "Someone spiked my drink without me knowing. I wouldn't have done those...things to you, so sorry. Again." She threw an unsure glance at the popular girls' table, blinking at the way one of the girls sneered in her direction before she sighed to herself.

Lucy made the connection almost immediately. "They spiked your drink?" she inquired slowly, inclining her head in that direction. When the other girl gave another nod, Lucy's eyebrows drew together. "You aren't very good friends with them, are you?" It was blunt, but that was honestly how she was. She was even more surprised when Madeline confirmed that once more. "So why invite them to your party?"

"My brother invited them, not me. His party—his guests."

Madeline having an older brother slipped from her memory. Lucy could remember the guy, but only vaguely. Madeline looked as though she belonged in that group of popular girls, but for some reason, she didn't. Her demeanor, the way she talked, the way she looked around the room for something with this sad expression...Madeline looked even more of an outcast than she was, and that was saying something, since Lucy was the only white girl attending this school.

"It's fine," Lucy grinned at her lazily. "You were drunk, so it's alright. It didn't bother me that much anyway."

Madeline smiled back at her gratefully, tucking a curly strand of hair behind her ear.

It was then that Lucy began to believe that Madeline Kemp's breasts weren't as large and dangerous as she originally thought they were – at least, compared to the rest of the girls at school anyway. Madeline was a sweet enough girl who didn't deserve to be treated like that by the other girls. Despite the awkwardness of how they started, they could be friends, right? What was more awesome than a pair of complete outcasts anyway?

It was the start of a beautiful friendship when Madeline snuck some chocolate chip cookies in her hand and decided to share them with Lucy.

* * *

Seth really thought he was getting better at handling this.

He was wrong.

That inkling of fear he felt – fear of losing to the wolf again – furled into something that bordered nausea and pain, socking him in the stomach so hard that he tumbled off his bed for what seemed to be the hundredth time that week.

The impact of his body against the mahogany floorboards was a particularly loud one, and knowing his overbearingly apprehensive mother, the woman would run up the stairs at the lightest odd sound to check on her children. Lucky enough for him, Sue was already safely placed at Billy Black's house for their weekly Tribal Council meeting. His hand dragged down his prone body until it was palmed against the flat of his belly, rubbing it languidly in an attempt to soothe it.

However, his internal gut was suddenly attacked by that abnormal force, his fucking, _fucking_ wolf, once more, prompting him to twist his long legs while he roughly rolled onto his back and slightly lurched towards the bedroom ceiling before his form was slammed back to the ground. All of this noise would have been capable enough into alerting the whole neighborhood. He usually never slept this early – tucking in at eight o'clock p.m. on a Friday night was unheard of for any normal teenager.

But it was tiring for Seth to complete even the simplest of tasks, such as cashiering for their family's store, mowing the front lawn like he was supposed to, trying to put some food in his stomach, walking down the hall just to go to the damn bathroom. Jacob had removed him completely from the patrol schedule and there was no more shame to the Beta wolf than not meeting those expectations. No one blamed him, of course, but it didn't matter what they thought of him anymore.

Seconds after he was slammed back to his bedroom floor, the door burst open. "Shit, man, you okay?"

"Uh-huh," Seth replied shakily, offering Jacob a smile that proved to him that he was still that carefree Seth he had always been. It was a challenge, and he had managed it for a while, before the spasms began rocking his body. The wolf bit him where it had hurt as hell and Seth twitched a couple of times, groaning as he made no effort to leave the floor.

"That's it." A new voice. It sounded a lot like Leah. "I'm getting Lucy. She's the only one that can help him."

"Leah, she just moved back here. I don't think she's ready to know—"

"Fuck that, Jake! Give her a chance! I'm not going to stand around and wait for Seth to lose himself to that fucking wolf!"

Leah was shouting now because she was fucking scared and worried, and as her protective younger brother, Seth didn't want her to be like that. But she did mention Lucy, and that brought the sweetest, most beautiful thoughts to Seth that he nearly forgot about the acute pain he was stuck in. He had screamed enough until his voice had almost given out and the Pack had been snarling outside the confines of his house, wanting to do something to save their Beta but not knowing _how_.

He thought of Lucy looking at him with the warmest expression – like how Emily looked at Sam or Kim with Jared – loving the way her eyes brightened, her head tilting in amusement, her hair swaying over her shoulders, her laughter a wonderful melody in his ears, her arms opening to latch onto him the way Seth always wanted her to.

He smiled through the pain. Jacob thought it was weird for him to be happy while he was in self-affliction, but then again, this was Seth Clearwater they were talking about. The guy smiled at anything and anyone – that was just how he naturally was. And Jacob was a stubborn enough of a man not to let his Beta deviate from that.

* * *

The elder Clearwater sibling broke the speed limit repeatedly, although that wasn't very far off from how she normally drove anyway.

On the other hand, the younger one felt himself starting to crack.

* * *

"Leah? How are you, dear?"

"I'm fine, ma'am," Leah shuffled her feet around awkwardly under the kind smile of Clarisse, blinking rapidly when tall Thomas appeared by his wife's side at the doorway. "I...apologize if this might be abrupt, but is it possible for Lucy to spend the weekend at my house? We were planning on surprising her and my mom already started cooking some things and I wanted to hang out with her before..."

"Of course, Leah," Clarisse smiled even wider at the offer, nudging an elbow straight into Thomas' gut when the man frowned. "Don't give me that look, Tom. Let the girl have some fun with her friends. Lucy isn't four years old anymore—she doesn't have to go fishing with you if she doesn't want to. Lord knows that girl doesn't have the patience to sit on a boat for hours anyway—"

"Sweet cheeks finally agreed to go on the condition that we actually catch some fish to bring home for dinner. It's our Sunday tradition, Risa."

Clarisse scoffed. "A tradition that you _just_ started to invoke yesterday."

Lucy was right – these two could be as sweet as hell with each other, but it was far more entertaining to watch them fight. Somehow the argument transgressed from fishing to Thomas' high cholesterol level. Biting back a surprising smile, Leah sprinted up the stairs, letting her nose lead her to her friend's bedroom.

Because of Seth's impending predicament, her brother had every right to start an early bedtime at eight o'clock p.m. Yet seeing Lucy already sprawled across the covers of her bed, hidden beneath the plethora of pillows, caused Leah to stare at her slumbering form in disbelief. The fact that the girl went to sleep way earlier than her _grandparents_ was nearly unbelievable. On a Friday night.

Leah placed a hand on one bony shoulder and shook the other girl hard. "Hey, get up." It barely made a difference to how she was before, but when the she-wolf shook again, much harder this time, Lucy mumbled slurred profanities in her direction.

"Get your ass up," Leah hissed as she pivoted into Lucy's closet and took out the latter girl's duffle bag, dropping it on top of Lucy's prone form before grabbing a completely random assortment of clothing and throwing it into the bag. After finally noticing that the bag began to get heavier and heavier with all sorts of clothes, Lucy jerked awake.

"Leah, babe, if you wanted to see me this badly, couldn't you have waited until tomorrow?" Lucy rubbed her face with the heel of her hands, her eyes barely opening a fraction as she noticed what exactly Leah was doing. "You know, when I'm not half-asleep? And why are you stealing my clothes?"

"I'm not stealing your clothes," Leah replied curtly, depositing Lucy's toothbrush into the bag before promptly zipping it up. "And this couldn't wait, Lu. I already talked to your grandparents before I came up here. They're fine with you sleeping over at my house for the weekend."

"Your house? What the hell are you talking about?"

That was really all Lucy managed out before Leah wrapped her arm around the other female and all but dragged – yes, _dragged_ – the latter one determinedly down the stairs and out through the door. A slender foot grappled against Leah's questionable and tight hold, kicking the front door to her house closed before eyeing Leah as though she was some sort of psychotic murderer that wanted to kill her right here out in the blue.

Huh, they must have made quite a sight – two girls rather on the tall side engaged in an impromptu mock-wrestling session in the middle of the night. Not to mention they were in a public setting too. Her grandparents had been staring out the window this entire time, their faces appalled. Imagine her trying to her damndest to explain to her neighbors, who were probably watching through their own cracks of the window, why her friend looked like she was abducting Lucy right off her front green lawn.

"You know," she started off drolly as Leah practically shoved her and her duffle bag into the passenger seat, "I'd prefer it that you explain like a _normal_ person instead of rudely pushing me into a goddamn truck with nothing to go by."

"I'll explain later." She was already at the driver's seat? Better question, how did this girl get so _strong_? Seriously, Leah hauled her ass around as though she weighed like a sack of absolute nothing. Lucy should be impressed, except that she was pretty annoyed at the turn of events. "Why the hell are you fucking sleeping at eight o'clock anyway?"

"Well, I heard sleep was good for you and I decided to give it a try."

It then dawned onto her that Leah didn't look too good. Evidence of sleepless nights was protruding from her beautiful face like blooming flowers, pulling onto her attention instantly. Lucy couldn't find any resemblance of the bitter harpy she was proud to call her somewhat best friend by reacquainting with her last weekend at the party. The party where-

"I know you're open-minded with most things," Leah began with uncharacteristic trepidation, her fingers clutching at the wheel in a way that made those digits brim an astounding white against the moon-lit beams of the car. "But I...I'm begging you to be _really_ open-minded about this. I'll make it up to you in any way I can. After the way I've ignored you over the years, I probably don't deserve this, but—"

"Sure thing." Fine, she was still annoyed, but for Leah, she would do whatever it was she needed. "Just tell me what's going on."

"Seth's in pain." And that was a terrible way to respond to her inquiry because Lucy twitched at both the name and the information. She might not have hung out with him all that much when they were kids, courtesy of a selfish Leah, but she knew that Seth – the Seth she remembered as a kid – was a good human being, one that always answered with a cheerful smile and didn't at all deserve to suffer with anything in the slightest.

She didn't like how she always jerked whenever Seth's name was mentioned. Something was wrong...

Lucy pressed her tongue against her cheek. "What?"

"You can help him. Seth...he's not doing too well. I promise we'll explain everything to you later, but he needs you right now, Lu."

"But what can I possibly do?" Lucy threw back with that habitual arch of her eyebrow.

"Let's just say this has something to do with supernatural shit, okay?"

Supernatural shit could have meant anything that ranged from psychics to fucking Harry Potter. In a manner that had broken all kinds of driving laws, Leah haphazardly made it to the Clearwater's house in five minutes, and it was a bloody miracle that La Push didn't have their very own Charlie Swan chasing them with that siren of his like Forks did. There was a hazy blur to the right of her before massively bulging arms whipped her out _through the window_, as if opening the car door by its handle took too much time and effort.

"Thanks for coming, Lucy." Ah, she recognized that tone.

With the way she was suddenly crushed to his chest in a none-too-gentle hug, she truly wondered what was it that was currently brewing in the waters of La Push, considering some of the male population here had grown at freakishly abnormal rates. There had been a time where she had been taller than Jacob Black, but now her line of vision barely hit right at his upper torso.

Despite the unfortunate circumstances of how it was done, Jacob couldn't deny that Seth imprinting on Lucy made him stronger. Not only did it give him a boost of strength, it made Seth stronger – and his wolf, both frantic for domination – and it made the Pack stronger as a whole. An addition to the Pack, wolf or imprint, always gave them more natural potency.

"Not like I had a choice," she muttered lowly, remembering all too well of the events having occurred in the past ten minutes. "Damn, what have you been eating, Jake?" Because he was huge and Jacob grinned in acknowledgement. "Leah tells me this is about Seth?"

Jacob molded his fingers around her shoulders. "Did Leah tell you everything?"

She gave one imperceptible shake of her head. "Not everything. Like the supernatural shit for one thing."

Unexplainably, she got this foreshadowing feeling that seeped from the Clearwater's estate. Despite its affability, the nice structure and depth of the house simply exploited that this family was more well-off than most living on the rez. But something was clearly...off.

A mumbled curse brought her attention back to Jacob. "So you know Seth's kind of sick right now?" Her nod of assurance inadvertently caused him to grip her just a tad tighter, fingers digging slightly into her skin. His heavy sign implicated his unwillingness to tell her, small creases in his young forehead forming out of stress. "Look, I know it's fucked up to shove all this shit onto you like this, and I'm just asking you to try to go along with this as quickly as possible—"

"You don't think this is _not_ going along with things?" she snorted derisively. "I just let Leah practically drag my ass out of my house to come here for reasons I still don't understand."

He chuckled deeply at her. "True point." Lazy, yes, but Lucy was thankfully the type to be awfully laidback. If she hadn't been so willing to just go with the flow in any situation, she would have tried to escape Leah's deathtrap car earlier on. "Okay, I want you to go into that house," he turned and pointed his hand at the Clearwater's, prompting her to notice two equally giant and nameless Quileute men guarding the front door, "and when you see Seth, I need you to give him the biggest bear hug you can give."

Oh, god.

Tawny eyes blinked owlishly in a way of processing that last statement in. "You want me to go in and give him a hug." It should be a question in repetition, but her tone fell flat at the end of the disbelieving, dry remark.

"Okay, so it sounds a little weird—"

"Weird does not even begin to cover what I'm thinking, Jacob Black."

Before the Alpha wolf could even begin to come up with a reasonable assertion to defend himself and the matter at hand, his eyes widened when she merely whirled in spot and started heading towards the house. Honestly, she didn't even know why she was going along with this either – things still weren't properly explained to her. But Seth was in trouble and the Clearwaters have always been close friends of the Weiszs. The huge men guarding the door both gave her stony looks that was close to a silent _thank you_.

Lucy didn't bother knocking; she stormed into the front foyer of the house, her eyes scanning the area for rudimentary signs of anything tall, pertaining to a sun-kissed tan, and gifted in visceral muscles.

A sharp intake of breath. "Lucy?"

The throaty, husky voice pulled her in the left direction, leading her straight into the impressive dining room that had Sue Clearwater written all over it. She stared into those beautiful brown orbs of his, the one reflected symmetrically in Leah's face, silently reading the ache and the incomprehensible pain lingering in the dark abysses. His eyes were lined with the slightest of indigo tinges, his skin so awfully pale in the half-lit room, shoulders hunched over in the underlies of invisible weight.

His body was half-leaned against the dining room table, one hand falling limply to the side while the other clutched at the edge of the table as a coping mechanism of mentally and physically bracing himself against whatever was afflicting him. His eyes were comparable to that of a baby deer caught in the headlights, an inner war raging his mind whether or not to stay where he was or dart up the stairs and lock himself in the sanctity of his bedroom. He attempted to take a step towards her, but then he flinched back violently at the simple exertion.

For some reason, the mere thought of Seth in pain didn't bode well with her. His hesitation drove her into action, detrimentally pushing her across the room in under two seconds, not even bothering to register his wide-eyed expression as she slid her arms around his torso like a bullet whilst dragging him into a deliberate embrace. Her arms barely made it around his frame, but this was as close as a bear hug she could get towards the frustratingly large male.

Seth didn't let out that same shortness of breath upon first seeing her. He downright _gasped_ loudly at the moment of impact this time, swaying unsteadily at her overwhelming touch. The wolf had stopped tearing him from the inside, his ears perking up at the essential physical contact of their lovely mate. The beast tilted his head at the notion, giving Seth another rough nip in the side for good measure before lying on its belly, flattening its ears, and purring to the rhythm of their mate's pale arms twining all them together.

With an inaudible choke stuck in his tight wake, every inch of his impossibly hardened and muscled body sagged against hers in emancipating relief as he simply melted around her. There was strange familarity in the warm skin, the infallible heat, and the inhumane whines rippling through his throat that wafted though her, but she experienced all these new sensations with odd comfort. She didn't shrink away when his arms became vice-like with his iron grip on her, easily and wondrously tucking her right beneath his chin.

There was this _need_ to be in his arms, to keep him safe, to keep him happy.

"I'm sorry," he whispered hoarsely, immediately nuzzling the crown of her head with his cheek. If remotely possible at this point, he closed in on her even tighter, practically swallowing her whole with his own body. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so fucking _sorry_..."

"What are you sorry for?" she prodded gently, letting Seth squeeze his way into her before she craned her neck just to look at his eyes.

Lucy froze upon seeing the color of bright yellow bleed into his ochre orbs.


	4. Chapter Three

**A/N: **I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO UPDATE FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS! Did that catch your attention? Finals is coming up for me and it's going to be a little hard to update once a week like I have been doing. However, if you leave a review - long, short, whatever - I might pull off a miracle and update on the second week while trying to study for upcoming tests. Yes, this is shameless bribery and I'm aware of that. :)

But if I don't show up somewhere between the second week and after that, feel free to bring your pitchforks.

Thanks to my consistent reviewers: _d112hpfan, winstonwolfe, Mylanta56, Super Nerd Bomber, SmellTheFlowers, PrissyKyle, Ceasar-Flickerman, Coffeebean Queen_, thanks to my new reviewers: _Skb. xD, Maxsmomma, The all mighty and powerfulM, _and_ wolfhappiness_, and thank you to all my anonymous readers and reviewers. All this support is very much appreciated, you guys!

* * *

**Knotted**

**...**

Chapter Three

[_Be my mirror, my sword and shield_]

* * *

Their mate was scared.

She didn't show it, of course. Her face remained expressionless – an unconscious and rebellious action from displaying any true emotion – as sanguine yellow started to completely camouflage the rich brownness of the human's eyes. But there was no denying the subtle spike of her heartbeat, the aura of her skin growing colder than it normally was, or the smell of illusive terror that drove both Seth and the wolf absolutely and manically crazy because their imprint had no reason to be frightened around him..._them_.

Lucy blinked once, only to find herself pinned to the nearest wall of the dining room. The effort of doing so had resulted in the table being slammed off to the side and the decorated chairs scraping loudly against the floor as they were forced out of the way. The wall dug into her back from behind as Seth stepped in and precisely left no space between the fronts of their compressed bodies. He as in front of her, all around her, everywhere, and she found herself rendered immobile.

But she never let that inconsequential fear leak itself onto her face. "Seth..."

"Shh," he murmured, displeased that her tone sounded wary to his ears. She could actually feel the weight of his aberrant-colored eyes landing on her bare throat before he leaned down and stuck an inquisitive nose in. "Don't be scared, mate. I won't hurt you. _He_ won't hurt you. We won't let anything harm you. You're always going to be safe with us, so there's no need to be afraid." He sniffed her throat again, making a soft whining noise when there was no change in her scent.

Underneath the overwhelming confusion, there were still traces of uncertainty and trepidation that didn't sit too well with the wolf. His arms were painfully tight around her, suffocatingly so, yet he was starting to rub his warm hands up and down her sides in an attempt to soothe away all those unwanted feelings. Rubbing his nose at the very base of her throat, his fingers curved into her hipbones with all sheer possessiveness, his breath ghosting past the angular indentions of her collarbone.

What was more bizarre: the fact that Seth looked and sounded as though he was possessed by something else beyond this world or the fact that he kept pluralizing himself? If this wasn't the so-called supernatural shit Leah and Jacob kept talking about, Lucy didn't know what was. Seth kept his face buried in the crook of her neck, mumbling incoherent things into her skin. Throughout those undefined mutters, most of them muffled, she could make out the words 'protect' and 'safe' and 'sorry' and 'mine'. Especially _mine_.

"I'm not scared, Seth," Lucy told him, wondering how in the hell he figured that one out when it wasn't really prevalent in any of her expressions. Not showing fear had always been an innate intuition built inside of her. "Can you let me go?"

He inhaled her deeply, lips grazing the edge of her chin as he tilted his head. "You're lying."

"Where's Seth?" she threw back, eyebrow raising to her hairline when the male in front of her slipped a hand up her backside, sliding it up until she felt a hot palm curved against the nape of her neck. "Last I checked, Seth didn't have a multiple personality disorder on him. Who the flying fuck are you and what'd you do with Seth Clearwater?"

Right when Seth, or whoever the hell this was, began chuckling against her cheek, _something_ blew the front door open and rushed in to tackle Seth to the ground. The minute Seth's proximity evaded her, she stumbled to her feet with uncharacteristic clumsiness, realizing then that the guy had pinned her to the wall with her feet hanging inches off the ground and Lucy hadn't even noticed. She was perturbed to hear the loud, angry snarls echoing around the house, even more disturbed to find out that the source of the animalistic noises were coming from the two men wrestling on the floor.

Large hands were cupping her face. "You okay, honey?"

Now Lucy had a hard time averting her gaze from the scene of Seth fighting off with another huge male that was around the former's body mass size, but when she finally managed, she wasn't all that surprised to find Jacob there in place. He looked over at her in utmost concern, quickly leaning in to – surprise, surprise – sniff her too. His arm wrapped tentatively around her waist, plastering her to his side.

From the ground below, Seth snapped his teeth at the one male holding him down, his eyes diverting to watching his imprint being held by someone else other than _him_. And when Jacob hugged Lucy tighter to himself, there was no doubt in the Alpha's mind that Seth would go incorrigibly ballistic. Seth might be one of the nicer ones in their Pack, but as Beta, his wolf was naturally territorial to the extreme.

"**Get off me, Paul!" **the Beta roared and Lucy swore that she felt the entire house shake from the yell. What was even more shocking was that the man named Paul removed himself completely from the other male even before Seth finished the entire command.

Jacob had to hand it to Lucy – the girl barely shook when Seth had screamed out like that. The scent of confusion that currently surrounded her was understandable, but she was taking the situation in strangely well for someone who recently had no idea that these type of things could exist nearly twenty minutes ago.

"You owe me two decent meals, Jacob," Lucy grinded her teeth together while rapidly processing everything into her brain. "This is _bullshit_."

"I probably owe you more than that," he responded dryly, looking as though he wholesomely agreed with her. He straightened his shoulders before gently pushing her in the direction of yet another nameless, well-built male. This one, despite being nearly Jacob's size, was older and carried on a much sterner expression. "Here, Sam, take her."

Lucky enough for her, this Sam had been dutifully holding onto her duffel bag. She reached for the bag right when Sam repeated Jacob's former movement and kept an iron arm around her, but she didn't really notice this, considering she was scavenging through her bag like a raccoon for the exact materials she wanted. Sending Leah a mental note of appreciation for the older female packing her bag, Lucy happily took a hold of the Dum Dums located deep at the bottom, placing a blueberry-flavored lollipop in her mouth before sticking a second one behind her ear.

_Okay, _she thought to herself as her mouth was assaulted with blueberry goodness. _Everything's alright in the world again._

"Jake said your name was Sam? That's a nice name." Sam looked at her in mild amusement, the exchange lasting for a quick second, before his gaze immediately went back to his Alpha and Beta. "What's wrong with Seth?"

The older man shook his head slightly. "It's not my place to tell you."

Lucy opened her mouth to ask another question, but she didn't get the chance. This shit was really starting to freak her out and she was given the epiphany that it wasn't over just yet the moment Jacob took a hold of Seth's short hair, using it as leverage to mercilessly slam the back of the younger male's head against the ground. The sound of his head colliding with the mahogany of the floor struck Lucy more than it really should have, momentarily splintering a small part of her mindset into fragments.

"Easy," Sam murmured quietly, his arm protectively curling around her frame even more when Lucy suddenly swayed into him, feeling as though her legs were about to give out any minute now.

There was an aching pressure that was hovering somewhere around the inside of her mind, a sensation that was more unpleasant inwardly than it was on the outside. She barely felt Sam holding her up, barely feet the lollipop that was left slackened at the dip of her tongue. Holding back a small wince of her own, her eyes strayed back to where Jacob still kept Seth captive on the ground, registering in the colossal dent that now decorated the floorboards from where Seth's head had been smashed into seconds ago.

"Damn it, Jake!" Huh, when did Leah get inside here? "Did you have to do it that hard? The mind-fucking is starting to affect her."

"Must be a strong imprint bond then," Sam mused right after.

The Alpha ignored both of the other wolves. "Seth?" he ventured when the other male's eyes began to glaze over. "Come on, Seth. **Get your control back**."

The goldenness of the wolf's eyes was slowly turning back to their usual brown again, a silent struggle remaining deeply dormant to keep it from surfacing beyond all mentality. The spirit of the wolf was strong, but Seth was indubitably stronger. There was a point during the culmination of the onslaught when Seth gently persuaded Jacob to let go of him – he didn't necessarily need to hold the Alpha's hand anymore. You sure, Seth? I don't want you relapsing again.

A small pause, then Seth's voice. Yeah, I got this. Did you see pretty girl by the way? My imprint's pretty, huh? Shaking his head, Jacob allowed himself to spare another glance towards Lucy and he couldn't help but agree. One of these days, Jacob was going to get the full background story on why Seth had given her that particular nickname. But with Lucy practically using Sam as her own personal crutch, he felt a little guilty. Uhhh...Seth? I think I might have slammed you too hard. After all, Jacob did play a major part in making Lucy feel abruptly woozy.

No shit, Sherlock, Seth replied sarcastically. Do you know how pissed off my mom's going to be when she sees this dent? It means that I won't get any cake for dessert, you asshole.

Jacob didn't mean the way-too-noticeable dent on Sue Clearwater's floor. So maybe slamming Seth's head down like that might have extended far off into Lucy's range, and okay, maybe she was looking a little unstable at the moment, with the way her hands were all but clutching onto Sam with everything that she had and – You did _**WHAT**_? Jake, what the_ fuck_ did you do to my imprint?

The Alpha didn't think they had time to get into this right now and mildly suggested that Seth hurry up and contain that wolf of his before the pale girl passed out in Sam's arms. Bristling, Seth squashed down most of that resentment reserved for Jacob and solely directed his mind, body, and spirit into coercing the wolf back to where he belonged. Deep down, the younger Clearwater knew that his wolf had nothing but the best intentions, yet the beast caused more damage than aid. Lucy's face, still puzzled and disorientated by all of this, was enough for the wolf to give up his short reign.

A familiar smile touched Seth's lips as he took his Pack in once more at full throttle, loving his Pack as much as they loved him in return. Maybe he loved them even more, not because he was Beta, but because he was Seth Clearwater, and he always went out of his way to make sure that his loved ones were very much appreciated in his life overall.

Leah knew that her brother was back to his annoying little self again, but she was surprisingly okay with it. Paul felt the heaviness that had swarmed him whole ever since Seth imprinted a week ago being lifted away from him. Sam finally let out the breath he didn't realize he had been holding in this entire time. These silent reactions were joined by the composition of celebratory howls that could be heard from way inside the very heart of the woods.

"Welcome back, man," Jacob peered down at him with a large grin.

In response to that, Seth reached up and punched his Alpha right in the face.

And in a motion to fast for the average human eye to fully process, Seth was already up and striding across the room, coming to a halt at the pair in front of him before he gently pried Lucy away from Sam and back into his own embrace. There were no words to describe how wonderfully _complete_ he felt to have his imprint cradled in the circle of his arms, to feel the rhythm of her heart beating against that breakable, but utterly beautiful, cage of flesh and bone.

Surprisingly enough, Lucy wasn't as short as Kim was, or even Emily for that matter. She was close to Leah in height, but Seth still had to either bend his knees a little or incline his head all the way down to fold his arms around her the way he wanted to. It didn't matter – her height was absolutely perfect. She was perfect. Even without the ways of the imprint bond, Seth was already way too deep in love with this girl that it had practically become a running joke within the Pack throughout these years.

Sam had imprinted on his girlfriend's cousin. Jared had imprinted on a girl he had basically ignored throughout his high school career. And Quil? It had taken an agonizingly long time to convince Claire's parents that he wasn't a pedophile.

Despite the traumatic and shaky beginning, imprinting had gotten it _right_ when it came to Seth.

The former Alpha didn't fight the grin that made its way to his lips. "It feels good, doesn't it? Just holding her?"

"Yeah." Seth's fingers were getting lost in her long hair as he leaned down to kiss her forehead. "Shit, I get it now, Sam."

"Ow," came a slight mumble from beneath him, automatically eradicating Seth's attention away from the brief conversation he had been having. Lucy was waking up from the smothering obscurity she was somehow placed under, the tips of her fingers trailing upward to press lightly at her temple – a universal sign of a migraine – while she subconsciously leaned against his body. "Seth—wait, it _is_ you, right?" she stared up at him shrewdly, moving her lollipop to the side of her mouth in order to talk to him properly.

"You tell me," Seth said softly, using a hand to tilt her face up in his direction.

And here Lucy was, thinking that more shit was going to hit the fan. She silently scrutinized his eyes, waiting for that xanthic sheen to take over, but they still remained the color of warm, jaunty mocha. The purple circles that had been under his eyes when she had first seen him were beginning to fade and his skin was losing that sickly pallor...and wow, he was really gorgeous, wasn't he? No wonder the girls at school wouldn't shut up about Seth Clearwater, since they had every reason to keep commenting on the way he looked-

"Yeah, it's you," she grumbled, her head was hurting for no apparent reason whatsoever. Lucy tried to get out of his grasp, but when that action only provoked Seth into snuggling with her even more, she gave up pretty quickly. Hand firmly pressed against her forehead, she completely missed the way Seth beamed a thousand-watt smile once she rested her cheek against the center of his chest. "Do you have any Midol or Tylenol?"

"The headache will go away soon, pretty girl."

Even in her state of mind, Lucy was shocked to find out that Seth still remembered that nickname. Instead, she retorted: "And just how do you know that will happen?"

"It will, trust me."

"Why the hell would I trust a guy whose eyes turned fucking _yellow_ and sounded as though he was being possessed?" She blinked at the dent in the floor, then at the people in the room. "Oh, man, this was an exorcism, wasn't it?"

The sound of his bright chuckling tickled her ears, and albeit grudgingly, she wasn't above admitting the fact that she liked hearing the peals of his infectious laughter ring across her. Excluding her grandparents, it had been a long while since someone outside of her small family had given her a hug like this...it was rather nice actually. She couldn't help it when she started to get sluggishly comfortable in his arms – well, Seth was too wrapped around his imprint to notice – and she snickered at the sight of Jacob mourning over his bloody nose.

Leah scoffed loudly. "Don't be such a pussy, Jake. You've had worse."

"I think it's an improvement on his face," Seth chirped, unwittingly pulling laughter out from all present except the one irritable victim still sprawled on the ground. He smiled even wider when he felt Lucy faintly nod in agreement against his chest.

"Fuck off," Jacob tried wiping the blood from his nose, but he only succeeded in smearing it all over his hand. "I was only trying to _help_, Seth, and it worked too! You didn't need to..." he trailed off, apparently not knowing what else to say. The Alpha picked himself up, jerking his head towards the door, and immediately following that notion, Sam, Paul, and Leah left the house through the front. "By the way, welcome to the Pack," he grinned wolfishly at Lucy before following the others out and shutting the door close.

Pack? What the hell did that mean?

Lucy pulled her eyebrows together. "Where are they all going?"

"Some of them going home. The rest are out patrolling." Seth idly twirled a strand of her hair around his finger.

"I really love how you act as though I already know what 'patrolling' means in this context."

He laughed again, but instead of taking the time to admire it like she did before, Lucy had the small desire to sock him in the face. Before she even blinked, she was fitted snugly back in Seth's arms once more. "I _am_ really sorry about all this, Lucy," he whispered, voice solemn in the silence.

"Didn't we already go through this?" she asked, oddly receiving a sweet kiss to the cheek for that response. "You apologized earlier, but I still have no clue why you would apologize to begin with. And don't go dropping kisses like that, Seth. They could be potentially dangerous."

"Aww, you don't like my kisses? That's a first," came Seth's reply, his eyes sparkling when Lucy's own orbs rolled around in their own accord.

The playful Seth standing in front of her right now was entirely different from the tormented Seth she encountered when she first waltzed through the front door. In addition, both of those versions of Seth were vivid contrasts to the batshit crazy Seth that had pinned her to the wall and attacked her neck without permission. The many personalities of this male were going to wear off Lucy very soon. She needed another Dum Dum – with the way she was eating these lollipops, she might as well start calling them anxiety pops from now on.

Seth had told her that he was going to lead her to the guest room that was located on the second level of the house, but somehow, she had ended up standing in a mildly messy room with dark green walls, sleek mahogany floorboards, and a king-sized bed. A fucking _king-sized _bed. A gigantic bed like that was practically sleep's soul mate. The stack of school materials that were strewn haphazardly atop the desk in the corner and the clothes that loitered the floor was a grand indication that this was not the guest room.

"This isn't the guest bedroom," she pointed out in an askew manner.

"No, you're sleeping here instead," Seth threw back at her in all cheekiness. When Lucy's expression turned stoic, he frowned. "C'mon, pretty girl, look at the bed. It's nice and big. You're lucky I'm sharing it with you."

"Oh, I'm sure you've shared this bed with plenty of other girls," Lucy countered blatantly.

If Seth choked at the retort, he did a damn good job at hiding it from her. He felt it very necessary to say then: "I don't have a girlfriend."

That wasn't a necessary answer to her earlier statement, but okay. "Really?"

"I know—surprising, isn't it? I mean, _look_ at me."

Seth suppressed a chortle of amusement when he heard her snort indignantly at the last statement. Nevertheless, it still didn't garner him the attention he wanted; Lucy simply tilted her head to the side, her attention pinpointed somewhere else other than him. He refrained from looking outwardly crestfallen at her disinterest, minor and temporary as it may be, and stared on in shock as she withdrew another lollipop that had just been sitting behind her ear. He had lost most of her attention to a damn Dum Dum pop.

"What about you?" He was so willing to forget what had just occurred in the past two minutes. "I bet a pretty girl like you isn't single."

"You're right." Not to be melodramatic or anything, but Seth was sure he heard the sound of his heart crumbling to pieces. He quickly blocked out other hindrances, so that Jacob and the Pack wouldn't know of his tumult of abrupt depression.

"Oh," he managed out, feeling as pathetic as how he must have sounded then.

The Clearwater male couldn't ever recall a time where he had been remotely envious of anything. He was known for his smiles; hell, he was, sometimes, kind to even his enemies. But even Taha Aki above couldn't help it when that ugly thing called jealousy reared its ugly head in Seth's mind. He wanted to repeatedly punch whoever the hell was lucky enough to be her boyfriend – freaking tear him to indiscernible pieces and then probably eat him for lunch – sans his friendly smile. Even someone like Seth was prone to rudimental envy.

Too busy cursing this nameless male in all the dirtiest Quileute words he knew, he failed to notice the bemused smile tugging at her lips as she wrapped her mouth around her second lollipop. "Didn't think you were so gullible, Clearwater."

"Huh, wha...? Oh, that's just plain mean, Lucy."

And he did actually pout this time.

She was smart enough not to look in his direction at that moment, knowing that exact look could turn out to be a lethal weapon against her.

"I completely understand why you don't have a girlfriend now," the pale girl grinned once she lifted the covers to Seth's bed, deliberately revealing the Spiderman bed sheet underneath.

"_Hey." _He nudged her lightly with his hip, forgetting this one time that he was way stronger than any normal teenage male was. The little bump against her backside sent her forward onto the bed, face pressed down onto the mattress. "Spiderman's the best."

Lucy languidly rolled onto her back, yawning around her fruity lollipop. "No, he's not. Iron Man is."

"Why?" She didn't even have to look at Seth to somehow know that he was offended by her choice of a superhero.

"Because I like looking at Robert Downey Jr. in his Iron Man suit." That answer prompted a small rolling of the eyes from Seth, even if Lucy missed it on his face. The mattress beneath her was insanely soft, like heaven bundled up in a large, slumbering cushion. She was really tempted to move her arms up and down and her legs side to side, making a snow angel motion without actual snow. "Can you tell me what's been going on now?"

Letting out an almost inaudible sigh, Seth fell back onto his bed without restraint, causing Lucy's body to slightly bounce along with the mattress the second his back made impact with it. "Wouldn't you rather sleep right now? Jake told me you were sleeping when Leah came and dragged you out of bed," he turned his head to face her, giving her a close profile of his comely features.

She poked at the lollipop stick that protruded from her mouth. "The sugar's keeping me awake."

The girl ended it there as though that short statement alone was enough to prove her argument. Lucy drummed her fingers atop her stomach, waiting for the explanation that would surely be peculiar to conventional circumstances, based on recent activities that deviated from the norm. Seth followed the dawdling movements with a heated gaze, taking in the way her hands played a tiny percussion along the flat planes of her midriff with special interest.

Voice shockingly somber, Seth first summoned the tale of Q'wati, almighty creator and protector of the Quileute people. He launched into a story about how one day while walking across the earth, Q'wati saw two wolves lingering on the Quileute soil without any evidence of human existence ever touching on the land. Q'wati then transformed those wolves into people and dubbed them as the Quileutes, saying: _"For this reason you Quileute shall be brave, for you came from wolves." _

She experienced a walk down memory lane when Seth continued onto the legends about Taha Aki and the spirit warriors that had the ability to shape-shift into wolves in order to protect the people of their tribe. These were the sacred bedtime stories she remembered her father telling her while tucking her into bed when she was just a little girl. However, the one legend about the Cold Ones was a new one to her ears, as well as this strange phenomenon called imprinting – an unusual and involuntary way of shape-shifter finding his soul mate.

"It sounds a lot better when Billy Black tells them," Seth suddenly ended with a sheepish smile, breaking the calming susceptibility that flittered through while the legends were being told. Even so, she still thought his deep timbre had been lulling to fit the mood. "What are you thinking about?" he inquired, taking note of her blank face.

"Honestly? What I'm going to eat for breakfast tomorrow." It was an outlandish answer, one that made Seth let out a noise that was mixed between a cough and a strangled laugh. "Are these legends relevant at all?"

"I'm a wolf, Lucy."

Lucy blinked at his serious expression. "Um, okay. Cool. Not sure if that's an animal in the Chinese zodiac system, but whatever. I'm a pig, by the way." Which is a little ironic, if her eating habits were anything to go by.

Seth had imprinted on the one person that was just as ridiculous as he was. Without warning, his arms snapped out to snake themselves rapidly around her waist, reeling her in until her back was pressed solidly against his chest. She made a noise and moved to wiggle her way out of this impromptu embrace – something told her that these hugs would be happening a lot more in the future – but Seth's arms remained anchored around her as dipped down to rest his forehead against her shoulder blade.

"All those legends are true," he murmured against her shoulder, the feeling potent enough to have inadvertent shivers crawling their way up and down her spine. "The Cold Ones—vampires—they exist, and because of that, _we_ do too. I turn into a wolf on a daily basis all for the purpose of killing vampires and keeping this land safe. Those wolves you hear at night? They're us, Lucy. We patrol every perimeter of La Push and Forks to make sure vampires don't step over the borders. When they do, we have no choice but to hunt them down."

"So when your eyes turned yellow—"

His fingers unconsciously dug into her skin. "That was my wolf you were dealing with. It comes with being able to phase into a wolf at will—that I have to share this body with an animal."

This was too much to process and Lucy realized that she needed another lollipop. But she pushed forward anyway. "And imprinting?"

The hardest of all explanations.

"I've explained to you what that was," he reminded her gently as he rubbed his nose along the curve of her neck. Seth had wanted to see her reaction to all this very badly, but there was a reason why he hid himself behind her back during the process. "Remember when you walked in on me at that party last week?" He held back an imperceptible wince at the memory. "That's when I imprinted on you."

Silence. Awful, _awful_ silence. And then:

"So you imprinted on me while balls deep inside that other chick?"

His arms had slackened to the sound of her remark, allowing Lucy to roll away from him until she was finally facing him again. Seth's expression was bleak as he mentally relived that night and the disastrous repercussions that followed it. The wolf whined out its sincere apology, despite the fact that she couldn't hear it at all. Seth apologized too. He still couldn't quite bear to look at her face at this point, so he shifted onto his back, eyes lifted towards the ceiling.

"No matter what, you always have a choice in this. I'm not going to force you to be with me just because some wolf magic says that we belong together." _Even though I _want_ you to choose me, pretty girl. _"Regardless of what you choose, I'm always going to be there for you. It means that if anyone ever fucks with you, I'll kill them. If you need me, I'll put you above everyone else, even the Pack. You can hate me, although I really rather you don't, and you can hate this entire imprinting process, but I sure as hell will protect you at any cost, no exceptions."

"I wouldn't hate you," Lucy returned truthfully, her nose wrinkling at the thought. "Why would I hate you for something you can't even control?" He opened his mouth to respond, probably to argue with her on the last part, but she beat him to it. "Besides, I'm not all that spectacular at relationships, Seth. I'd be a terrible girlfriend."

Seth chewed the inside of his cheek. "I know that's not true, Lucy."

He seemed to deflate right before her eyes, an unfathomable look crossing his features. There was a small semblance of _heartbreak_ in his expression, but he made sure Lucy wouldn't be able to read it off of his face. He had said that he wasn't going to force her to be with him, and he had meant some of that, really, but being completely genuine about it was all bullshit. Of course he wanted her to love him, of course he desperately wanted her to accept this imprint as more than just an ambience that traveled beyond free will.

Fine, so Lucy didn't know him too well. Leah was the Clearwater she had always associated with during their childhood years, not him. But he knew _her _and Seth was more than ready to love Lucy – even if she was far from it.

"If it's any consolation," Seth murmured, sitting up in place, "I had a little crush on you when we were younger."

Infatuation probably fit the title a whole lot better, but he wasn't going to tell her that.

He _liked_ her years ago? What the _hell_?

"A crush," she repeated, though it sounded a little stupid though her own ears. Instead of asking why he never told her this, preferably before she moved to Ohio, she blurted out, "But that was a long time ago, wasn't it?"

"I never said I stopped liking you," Seth admitted in a soft tone, catching Lucy by surprise both by that admission and the way he lowered his head to kiss the crown of her tresses. "Goodnight, pretty girl."

Lucy concluded that Seth had to be a shape-shifting wolf in order to walk out of his bedroom that quickly. She almost didn't see him moving away until the door to his bedroom clicked close, locking him on the other side of the door.

Yeah, the shit was _so_ hitting the fan right now.

* * *

That night, three people residing in the Clearwater household had trouble sleeping.

A girl obsessed with lollipops and food was too busy listening for the howls that would surely crack through the night, the Beta was too preoccupied with the melody of hearing his mate's steady breathing and ensuring himself that she was alive and well, and a lonely she-wolf glared daggers into the ceiling, wondering why she had to lose everything to this wolf shit. Sue Clearwater was the only person able to get a decent night's sleep, but that was only because she didn't get a chance to see the dent on her floorboards yet.

None of them really noticed the crimson-eyed creature with marble skin wandering around the silent streets of Forks.

* * *

Seth decided that Lucy should wear a cat's bell around her neck from now on. He subconsciously considered buying her one, even if she wasn't ever going to string the thing around her neck. Why you ask? He didn't even know when or how, but Lucy had somehow managed to creep into the guest room – the room he was currently sleeping in when Seth offered her his own bedroom – early in the morning without alerting him of her newfound presence.

He smelled her natural scent first, making his mouth terribly mouthwatering, as well as the scent of artificial root beer. The bed in this room wasn't as large as the one he had, and it really made it uncomfortable to sleep for someone of his stature, but Lucy was sitting against the headboard with a contemplate look drawn on her alabaster-tainted face, a Dum Dum taking temporary shelter in her mouth as predicted.

"Morning, Fido," Lucy said blithely while Seth stared her down with his sleep-deprived eyes.

There was a long moment where they just gazed at each other, confusion and bemusement colliding all in one setting, before Seth unhesitatingly rolled over until his head was pillowed atop her lap, his arms lazily wrapping themselves around her small waist. The girl slightly shook at the reaction, her body vibrating in small chuckles, and Seth verily grinned against her thigh.

"Are you always going to hug me?" she asked with a dry hint to her tone.

"We wolves are touchy-feely people," Seth mumbled, the residues of sleep still clinging onto him with everything they had. "You're going to have to get used to it, pretty girl. Collin's a big-time cuddler."

Lucy flicked his nose with her thumb and forefinger. "Don't even mention that idiot. Did you know he nearly had a meltdown when I got a paper cut? He was slowly working himself into having a coronary." Not to mention Brady's overreaction as well.

"That was partially my fault. He was only listening to my orders." At her vacant expression, Seth specified another explanation. "In the Pack, we have ranks among each other. It doesn't matter how big or fast you are, but more on how dominant you can be. The more dominant you are, the higher rank you naturally have. I'm Beta, which makes me pretty damn high on the pecking order," he smirked then, making an indignant noise when Lucy flicked him again.

"Tell me more about the Pack."

Seth rubbed his nose, sending her a mock-wounded look. Of course it didn't hurt, but he found that he liked teasing with her. "Jake's the Alpha, and as of right now, Sam's Third, followed by Paul, Jared, Embry, Quil, Brady, and Collin. Leah—"

"Leah's a wolf too?" Lucy cut in, her eyes brimming with excitement and pride. _"Nice."_

He didn't know whether to be offended that Lucy was more interested in Leah turning into a wolf than _he_ was.

Biting back the urge to give a resenting pout, he hid his face further into her thigh. "Leah's the first female ever to phase into a wolf—or at least, we think she is. I think there's a handful more scattered around the world, but because she-wolves are so rare, they don't really have a rank. Leah's standing ranges beyond our ranking system...it doesn't mean that she _isn't_ important though. Far from it. She can hold her own, but there are times where we have to be really careful with her."

"Because?"

"Because our Pack isn't the only one that exists." That statement brought tiny, imperceptible chills to Lucy, and she couldn't decipher if they were good or bad. "There are other packs out there that want Leah just because of what she is," Seth added darkly, maybe because the idea of his older sister getting snatched away by other Alphas didn't sit too well with him.

"Are there other imprints in our Pack?" Lucy changed the subject quickly, realizing that this wasn't really a subject they should linger on.

And Seth brightened once more. "Claire, Kim, and Emily. I swear, we'd all be lost without Emily—she's a culinary goddess."

"Really?" Lucy leaned forward in interest. "Culinary goddess you say? Cause I'd like to meet her...you know..."

"No, you'd like to meet her food," he uttered back mockingly, although the smile on his face was clear as the day. "I'm only afraid that once you meet her, you'd start to fall deeply in love with her."

"She's _that_ good of a cook? Well, damn, I just might fall in love with her. Sorry, Seth, you're on your own," Lucy smirked down at him with a tilt of her head. "It's okay though. I'm sure that Spiderman plushie I found near your bed will take you when no one else will."

"That plushie was _not_ near my bed when I left my room! You _snooped_!" he suddenly exclaimed with a comically theatrical flair, pointing a finger right to her face.

Lucy let out a hearty laugh at that one and Seth nearly swooned at the sound of this type of laughter. "I didn't snoop around—that'd just be rude of me. I also didn't know you actually had a Spiderman doll hiding around your room. Honestly, I just said that to throw you off, hoping you'd deny having any dolls to begin with, but you've confirmed it, so..." she trailed off, letting an indulgent grin grace her face.

No. No. _No_.

Seth huffed petulantly and Lucy wasn't going to admit aloud that it looked and sounded pretty damn adorable. "You are the _meanest_—"

"I'm your imprint, Seth. Deal with it."

They both froze the moment the words left her mouth.

Hell, even Lucy was shocked that she had actually said that without hesitation. So much that Seth jerked in an upright position, his face a couple inches away from hers as he willingly let himself be consumed by the burnished umbers that were her eyes. There were only two outcomes to this: either she slipped up with her words or that she voluntarily identified herself as his imprint. If it was the later outcome – he hoped, he desired, he _prayed_ that it was – then it must have meant that she accepted the imprint bond, ergo accepting _him_.

Her eyes widened ever so slightly and there was this desolate moment where Seth was beginning to believe that her last statement merely just slipped out by accident. That she didn't at all mean it. She didn't want to be tied down by all this shit. But he...he would still stand by his honest word – he would still shower her with unrequited love, even it meant that he would be broken and battered to pieces by this dreary, one-sided love affair he was going to embark on. Fate had chosen the right girl for him, but there was deplorable chance that he might not be the right man for her. And if that was the case then-

"Seth?" Her voice gave him salvation to his morbid thoughts, a modulation he clung onto immediately. "You okay?" Hesitant, probably more quiet than usual. But her tone lacked the regret he had expected to hear.

The Beta swallowed his parched throat. "You said—"

"Yeah, I know," she interrupted before he had the chance, glancing at him with minor culpability of not letting him finish before she pressed onward. She took the lollipop stick out of her mouth and threw it neatly into the trashcan a few feet away. "The way I see it, imprinting is basically your inner wolf figuring it out that I'm your soul mate. I still don't understand what purpose this serves, and frankly, this imprinting thing kind of sounds a lot like Stockholm Syndrome to me, but if this bond is as abiding as it sounds, I'm not going to mess with it." Short pause. "Do you have a choice in this?"

He was struck with the thought of Quil and Claire above all the other bonds.

_Do you have a choice in this? _

"No," Seth answered honestly because that was what Lucy deserved, despite the fact that the word tasted like bile in his mouth. "But it's not like any of the other guys wanted to fight it. I don't want to fight it either and I'm not going to." He wasn't going to go against something that felt naturally right to him, no matter how bizarre the prospects were.

Lucy mulled on his response for five minutes. It felt like five years to Seth. Indolently, she twiddled her thumbs together. "If you're willing...then it's only fair that I meet you halfway." His heart gridlocked in place, his chest squeezing inward. "To tell you the truth, I was going to reject the bond, if that was even possible, but I didn't really like the idea after a while. But you have to promise that we're going to go at a slow pace—like snail slow, understand? Tiny baby steps."

"What made you change your mind?" Seth bit down his lip from grinning like an idiot.

"Well, I figured I shouldn't automatically shoot something down without giving it a chance first," Lucy supplied, the corner of her lips tipping upward in the beginnings of a small, sure smile in return. "I'm going to find out why wolves imprint in the first place, you know."

"No one's ever been able to do that, pretty girl. We all have our theories."

"Fine, challenge accepted."

That was the point that Seth had lost most of his control. He pounced on Lucy with the dexterity of a cat and somehow managed not to completely throw the pair of them both off the edge of the bed. Funny how one single night had the ability to change everything. There used to be a time where the only interaction between Seth Clearwater and Lucy Weisz had been faint blushes from him and curious glances from her. Not to mention Leah would come storming in and snatching Lucy away before the boy had a chance to talk to her.

They had gone from absolutely no contact to hugging so many times in under twelve hours.

"Baby steps," she reminded lightly as Seth rested his face against her neck.

"Thank you," Seth said in the barest of whispers, the tenor of his voice trickling warmth across her throat. His hand fisted the shirt at her back while the other tugged at the ends of her hair. "Lucy, _thank you_. We'll go at any pace you want. I promise."

"Why are you thanking me?"

"For not running away." The Beta could breathe normally, the worst of his fears over for now. The wolf wagged his tail in contented happiness, loudly yipping out its pleasure. "For not screaming at me that you never want to see me again. For not to moving back to Ohio and threatening never to come here again..." _For not telling me you hate me-_

"Alright, alright," she stopped him there, returning his embrace with a gentle squeeze of her own. Lucy hugged him back not because she had to, not because she was told to, but because she _wanted_ to.

And it felt so fucking good.

It lasted another fantastic minute before Lucy perked up, disentangling her arms from his body. "Do you smell that?" Her cute nose wrinkled one time while it was tipped towards the ceiling, taking a curious sniff at the air. It looked so wolf-like that Seth couldn't help but silently gape at her. A delightful expression took a hold of her face. "It smells French toast and—holy fuck, is your mother making honest to god _hash browns_?

Seth did smell the homemade French toast his mother was currently concocting, and yes, he also caught a whiff of the so-called hash browns that Lucy managed to pick up. He smelled the delicious cream cheese that was being stuffed into the French toasts, as well as the sweet and warm glazed strawberries that topped the bread as a whole. Normally, his mother didn't go through all this trouble into making such a grand breakfast, which most likely meant that she just found out that Lucy was spending the weekend here.

"You sure you're not a wolf too?" Seth took a leaf from her book and raised an eyebrow at her.

"Are you kidding me?" Lucy jumped from the bed, the movement looking almost giddy to his eyes. "This nose was practically trained to know what kind of food's being cooked in the kitchen, Clearwater."

The Beta grinned, following his imprint as she ambled straight into the kitchen without another word.

* * *

**A/N: **So Jacob and Seth have this telepathy thing going on between them without having to phase into their wolf forms - just because they're Alpha and Beta. They can do this with the other pack members as well, with Jacob being stronger at it, of course, but the other pack members can't do it with someone that isn't the Alpha or Beta. Just thought I'd explained this if things got too confusing.


End file.
